


Watch Me Drown

by ifinkufreaky



Series: Hold Me Down [2]
Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, BDSM, Bad BDSM Etiquette, Blood, Breathplay, Choking, Cutting, Discipline, Dubious Consent, F/M, I'll copy Ivar's kinks from Part 1 here, Knifeplay, Mouth Fucking, Pain, as trigger warnings since they'll probably come up again, boy knows what he likes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-01
Updated: 2017-07-04
Packaged: 2018-09-27 15:47:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 53,937
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10030016
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ifinkufreaky/pseuds/ifinkufreaky
Summary: Act II of Hold Me Down. OC Sigrunn Haraldsdottir tries to resist Ivar when he returns from England, but his power over her heart only grows the more that they are kept apart. Is loving Ivar her destiny, or will the memory of his touch fade away like a bad dream when her father returns to Kattegat and frees her from her hostage status?





	1. shifting winds

The breeze off the sea was crisp and fragrant. I pulled the edge of my hood closer to my face, screening everything but my eyes. A half-circle of shieldmaidens with nocked arrows surrounded a foreign-looking boat pulling into the dock. An English boat, the scout had said.

I was using the fabric to shield my face not only from the wind, but also from the eyes of the new Queen of Kattegat who stood beside me on the hill. The usurper, who had shot Aslaug in the back after accepting her terms of surrender. I had always respected Lagertha before that moment. Now I could barely look at her without my lip curling in contempt. But with her dominion over Kattegat came custody of me, the hostage daughter of King Harald, whether I liked her or not.

I was standing beside Lagertha now because Ivar was on that boat; the scout had announced that information as well. It was difficult to show nothing on my face as we stared down at the waterfront. My feelings about the youngest son of Ragnar were numerous and conflicting, but all of them were strong. He pulled at my heart, and Aslaug had done her best to wrap her hands around that spark of love and blow on it in recent weeks. Before Lagertha had killed her. And yet I also feared his return; Ivar had shown me little that was not cruel and even less that was not selfish in the time we had spent together before he left. I did not trust myself to be near him. I knew that I should not put myself under his power and yet somehow I always did.

 And so I used the wind as an excuse to hide my face from Lagertha, certain that some of these thoughts had to be reflecting in the turn of my mouth or the set of my eyes. She and Ivar were sure to be enemies, and until I decided where my own loyalties ought to lie I could give her nothing that might be useful against him. The political landscape had changed drastically at Kattegat, and it would be best if I waited for my father’s guidance before my own feet rippled the waters here.

Lagertha had sent Astrid to the docks with her contingent of warriors, but also instructed that Ubbe and Sigurd be allowed to come and collect their brother. I was surprised as she must have been dying for his information about what had transpired in England: why was Ragnar not with his son, and why had Ivar been carried back by an English merchant vessel crowded with soldiers. Perhaps it was a kindness to allow Ivar a reunion with his family first, or perhaps she just wanted to be as far away from the volatile boy as possible when he learned of what she’d done to his mother.

We watched in silence as the boat reached the dock and the armed guards dragged Ivar into his brother’s arms. His head flopped; his arms barely latched on to the shoulders of his brothers. My chest seized up and I barely stifled an anxious cry. It appeared that the English had not cared for him well. Lagertha shifted; had she noticed my reaction? She knew through the rumors of the household that Aslaug and I had become close in the weeks before her death. I wondered what other rumors might have reached her ears.

 

*****

 

The morning after Ivar and Ragnar left for England, Aslaug had decided upon spinning as the activity of the day. I had found it almost too symbolic to bear, the drop of the spindle and the twining of threads bringing vividly to my mind the image of the _norns_ weaving the unknown fate of Ivar, and that of my own life. I had made a decision the night before that could turn out to mean nothing, or everything. I had given myself to Ivar, and it felt like I had given him more than just my body. My soul felt twined to his now; I could feel a pull at my chest in the direction of the sea where he had gone. I could still smell him on me, when I turned my head or shifted my hair. My throat was still sore from his abuse. How our union would influence the course of my life now, I knew not.

There was little conversation amongst the women today. Aslaug’s eyes were hollow and haunted after seeing her son off at the dock. She did not look like she harbored much hope for his success.

“I cannot decide who looks more distraught today, the Queen or the Princess,” one of the rich matrons from town announced, evidently tired of the silence and making a very clumsy attempt to dispel it. I jumped a little, not having realized my brooding thoughts showed so plainly on my face.

Next I heard the voice of Freydis, a particularly sour young lady who shared the unmarried women’s room with me. “You came to bed very late last night, Sigrunn. Has that anything to do with it?”

I set my teeth and tried to suppress a glare as I cast about for an excuse. “I... I was being violently sick behind the hall, if you must know. I stayed out until I was sure I that I would not disturb you with my retching. Was that not kind of me, Freydis?” The last question came out with a bit more ferocity than I intended.

Freydis bowed her head in polite thanks, evidently taking the hint to leave me alone, but it was too late. Aslaug was already staring at me with calculating eyes.

“Did you catch ill as well, my Queen?” I asked, desperate to change the focus.

Aslaug shook her head slowly, not breaking her gaze from my face. “No. I have had a vision,” she said softly. “Ivar will die at sea.”

She watched my eyes tighten and crumble at the news, and then I was sure that my face had told her everything about my entanglement with her son.

The ladies sitting around us gasped and tittered as I tried to make sense of what Aslaug had said. Would the gods truly allow this?

“Did you warn him?” I asked. It was not my place to ask and yet I could not stop the words from rolling off my lips.

“I did. He would not listen. I do not think he believed me,” Aslaug said, grief heavy on her tongue. She was mourning her son already.

There was no conversation after that. I watched the spindle twist under my hands and I looked back on my night with Ivar with a heavier heart. He had known of his mother’s prophecy. Clearly it meant little to him, as he had seduced me with such urgent cheer in the great hall. Or was playing with me only another way for him to cover his fear?

Suddenly, I was fiercely glad that I had chosen as I did. If Ivar was to die, then I was proud that I had given him such joy before he went to the gods. The idea redeemed my stupid risk even as it weighted my heart with grief and fear.

Aslaug and I were the last to leave the circle, the other women finding one excuse or another to leave the hall and our morose company. She stood only when I finally did, stepped to me with mad eyes before I could walk away from her too. She grabbed my chin in her hand, turned my face up to hers.

“Did he put a baby in you?” she demanded, eyes searching mine for clues.

“I…” there was no use dissembling under her scrutiny. “It is too soon to know.” I had entirely forgotten to fear that possible consequence for my choices.

Her face softened, and she released my chin. “How long before you are due to bleed?”

I had not been very assiduous in keeping track. “I think two, maybe three weeks?”

Aslaug nodded. Her eyes were losing focus, her dark thoughts creeping back to consume her. “Then it is possible. You must keep me informed of your condition, daughter,” she said, then walked away, lurching slightly in her steps.

 _Daughter._ Was it giving her comfort to pretend that Ivar and I were already betrothed, that I was the mother of his child, because she was so afraid that her son was already dead?

 

Everyone in the hall heard Aslaug’s screams the next night. I approached her door with cloak wrapped hurriedly over my nightgown just to see two slaves leaving, faces drawn and pale. “She will accept no help,” one of them told me, shaking her head.

 

Aslaug was not in her room in the morning. I ate a tense breakfast with Ubbe and Sigurd, everyone worried and quiet and unsure of what to say. The queen found me outside the hall in the afternoon; her eyes were frantic and there were smudges of dirt and blood all about her person. “Ivar told me he saw you scrying in the sacred grove. Do you have a gift with the sight, child?”

“I would not say that I am gifted, my Queen,” I answered honestly. “I do not always see much of anything. But I was taught by my mother’s people.”

Aslaug waved my humility away. “The gods are never clear. They taunt me with conflicting answers. Let us see what they reveal to you.” Then she grabbed me by the arm and hauled me through the streets of Kattegat, back and out to a little hut in the hills where she had been working.

Clearly she had been divining all day. Corpses of small animals littered the room, piles of white bones, bowls of clear water. “Sometimes they say he lives, sometimes I see him drifting beneath the waves,” she said, voice breaking as her eyes flitted around the mess.

“Perhaps the gods have not yet decided his fate,” I offered.

Aslaug spun and glared at me. “Then why send me a dream at all?” she cried. “He did not heed my warning. It seemed to only strengthen his resolve.”

I feared her wild eyes, but I thought I had an answer for her. “Perhaps,” I said gently, approaching her with a placating hand, “that was the very outcome they intended?”

Aslaug stared at me as she mulled over my words, desperate and angry. Finally she sat down on a rickety little chair. “It may be as you say. How I wish I could hope. I want you to try a scrying, Sigrunn. I wish to see what answer the gods will give to his lover.”

I tried to ignore the way she spat the last word. It gave me an uncomfortable feeling, for her to acknowledge my indiscretion so openly.

The Queen and I worked divinations all afternoon. The messages were never clear, but I was left with the distinct impression that Ivar was still alive, and would survive his coming trials. Aslaug was not as reassured, but seemed willing to latch on to my own hope. In the following days she kept me close to her, and started to teach me some of the other magics she knew how to work. One day she showed me how she made the salve for Ivar’s legs; I thought that to be a very telling sign that she was regaining her optimism regarding his return. We tried several methods of divining whether I was carrying his child, both of us too impatient to wait for it to become obvious. The answers were as muddled as any other question I had ever asked about Ivar. It was as if some god wanted to make sure that I knew nothing of his particular future, or of my place in it.

Though our emotions were dark and fraught with worry, the fact that we were not alone in those fears was bonding us together. I realized Aslaug had spent Ivar’s entire life feeling like she was the only person that would ever love him, and it left her isolated in her own home. The fact that I clearly held some form of attachment to her son endeared me to her on an unexpected level. I myself was also coming to feel deeply comforted by the time I spent with the queen as well. My own mother had died when I was very young, and Aslaug’s mentoring and unexpected affections were satisfying a hunger I had forgotten I had. My childhood adoration of the woman was rekindling, and her teachings gave me something to think about aside from brooding thoughts of her son.

Not that she let my mind stray too far from him; it was clear he was always in her own thoughts as well. I started to picture myself staying at Kattegat after my father returned, marrying Ivar and continuing this life in Aslaug’s household. At this distance from the constant storms of Ivar’s presence, I started to believe it would be a life that would make me happy. Ivar had his faults, but perhaps I would learn to navigate them with a grace and pride of my own.

Aslaug said to me once as we were crushing dried herbs in her workshop: “A man’s strength is in his arms, and in his victories. These are things that are easy to recognize. Women are often strong in different ways. A woman’s strength can be in her ability to _bear_. Not just in bearing children, but in bearing the suffering given to us by the gods, and even sometimes what is dealt out by the very people that we love and care for.”

I knew she was talking about Ivar, could see that she believed these words. Did I believe them too?

 

I rushed to Aslaug’s side as the invaders from Hedeby pressed through Kattegat’s streets. I think now that Aslaug knew her death was coming, was resigning herself to it even as she fetched the sword from the great hall. “Stay here, do not get involved.” I tried to follow her back out anyway; she pressed her hand to my shoulder. “This is between Lagertha and I. It has been a long time coming. You are to above all keep yourself safe and well, whatever happens next.” She gave me one last haunting look through her kohl-rimmed eyes, and then she was in the street, head held high as she marched to her death.

 

*****

 

I had managed to be stoic in my weeks under Lagertha’s thumb, hiding my anger, my grief and my loss. Aslaug was gone now, probably feasting in Valhalla with her legendary parents. My pretty dreams of finding a home with her and Ivar had crumbled. I still did not even know if Ivar was alive. I bled and knew that I was not pregnant with his child. Soon I decided that I just wanted this time of my life to be over with.

I tasked myself simply with existing until my father returned and relieved me of this horrid place with its haunting memories. Ivar might very well be dead, and even if he were not, I felt I should take this chance to pull myself out from under the spell of his cursed family. My time at Kattegat could become like a bad dream in the story of my life, I could go back to Vestfold and gather myself together, as I had after the last time I was hostage here. I could begin to dream of marrying a normal man with normal desires. Father would take me home, and I would forget the cruel son of Ragnar Lothbrok.

But then Ivar returned before my father did.

Knowing he was just outside Kattegat with his brothers shattered what little peace of mind I had managed to create for myself. There were so many thoughts I had been able to defer on the premise that Ivar might be dead. Now he was here, and he was being kept from me, or I from him.

Guards followed me around town as closely as they did Ragnar’s sons now; Lagertha had indeed heard all about my involvement with the youngest Ragnarsson from someone. She had revealed as much shortly after Ivar’s return. “I think it was terrible, what Aslaug was doing to you,” Lagertha had said, with a condescending form of compassion in her eyes, “giving you over to her monstrous son.” I shifted uncomfortably, wondering exactly what she thought she knew. “I will keep you safe from him until your father returns with my Bjorn.” She had made it clear there was to be no discussion of my own wishes on the matter. I was her hostage now, and her plan for my keeping was clear.

Part of me was glad of it. I did not know my own heart clearly enough, or perhaps I did but it was certainly at odds with the wisdom of my mind. In our brief time together, Ivar had overwhelmed me. Our affair had lasted less than a week, and then he was gone. I hadn't had time to think very clearly about what he was doing to me. Torturing me, manipulating me, loving me. Wooing me in his own way. I loved the rush he gave me, the way he made me feel ecstasy and agony both at once.

Every night I fell asleep imagining Ivar’s arms around me, just as we had laid together the night before he left for England. _I claim you, Sigrunn Haraldsdottir,_ he had said in the woods. I still did not know what that truly meant to him. He had shared his body with me, despite his fears about his own abilities. He had said he wanted none other than me, had looked at me like I was a creature specially designed just for him. He hurt me and soothed me in turns. He called me “pet” and hoped to prove his prowess to others by being seen with me. Did he love me, or was I just a game to him?

It would still be wise of me to stay hidden under Lagertha’s wing, awaiting Father’s return. But if I were wise, I wouldn’t have gone to Ivar’s bed at all.

 

The first emotion that spread through my chest when I saw Ivar Ragnarsson crawling up one of the lanes leading into the town’s marketplace was relief. I hadn’t expected to see him, but market days are busy and Lagertha’s guards must not have been able to anticipate our paths crossing. From the way he moved I could see Ivar was at least physically recovered from his journey, thank the gods. His face, however, was empty and brooding, staring only at the ground just ahead of his hands. He had not seen me yet. He looked like the grief of losing both parents at once was hollowing him out.

Compassion and hope swirled through me next, and I ran to his side. I knew the guards Lagertha kept on both of us would not allow us to talk for long.

He still did not look up when I reached him, was focused solely on pulling himself along amidst all the passing feet. I crouched down on my heels before him, ducked my head to make sure my face was in his view. “Ivar,” I called, reaching my arms out to him.

His grief-stricken eyes barely focused on me, but he stopped crawling, leaned on one elbow to lift his other arm and receive my embrace.

“Your mother, your father…” I said as I circled my arms around him, “I am so sorry.”

Ivar pulled me into him tightly, clutching me to his breast. “Sigrunn,” he sighed, as if he only just recognized me at that moment. My heart bled as I recognized the full weight of the pain he was living now. He pressed his cheek to mine and whispered in my ear, so intently it came out in a hiss. “Why haven’t you come to me?”

“Lagertha would not allow it.” I could already see the scowling shieldmaiden that had been shadowing Ivar striding up to us now, shaking her head at me.

“I need you, Sigrunn,” Ivar continued, voice choking on my name.

My own guard’s hand clamped down on my shoulder from behind me. “That’s enough, Princess, come along now.”

Ivar actually growled at her and clutched me harder.

“I will find a way,” I promised him, pressing a kiss into his cheek. I inhaled deeply of his sharp and smoky scent. Then I peeled his arm from my waist and stood. My heart felt cut open and raw, letting him go this quickly, but I could not bear to give the shieldmaidens an excuse to strike him.

“It will not be this way for much longer,” Ivar called to me, voice shaking with wrath as I let myself be pulled away. “I am making sure of that.”

 

Days later, in the throne room, I had seen how much Ivar’s threats had shaken Lagertha. I was standing right next to her dais when Ivar had approached, murder in his eyes as he barked out his challenge. She refused him with authority and grace, managed to insult him without stooping to crude words, and maintained control of the room expertly. But I stood near enough to see her hands trembling by the end; I saw the way her eyes widened when Ivar promised to be the one to bring her death. _Your fate is fixed_ , he had pronounced, every inch his mother’s son.

He had barely even looked at me. I felt like my guts were all dropping to the floor when Ivar turned and left the hall without any kind of communication for me; not a word, not a smile, not a lift of his brows. I was beneath his notice that day. I tried to reign my disappointment in. Ivar was intent on his revenge; that was much more important than a burgeoning romance. He hadn’t meant to snub me, I told myself. His appearance in the hall was a calculated performance with no room for distraction. It didn’t have to mean he did not care, that I was only a toy he picked up when he had no other pressing matters at hand.

 _I need you, Sigrunn,_ he had said as he clutched at me, _why haven’t you come to me?_

That fear that he had put into Lagertha finally gave me an opening to convince her to let me see him. “Ivar’s foulest moods come when he is in pain,” I announced to her one evening as we sat about the great hall. She and her bosom companions, her son’s woman Torvi and Astrid her lover, were discussing the chances that Ivar would make good on his threats sooner rather than later.

I could see in her face that Lagertha was surprised I had spoken; I usually shared space with the new court at Kattegat in icy silence. “Explain yourself,” she commanded me.

“As you know, Ivar’s condition is a painful one,” I said, crafting my words as carefully as I could under her imperious gaze. The renowned warrior frightened me, but this was my only chance to visit Ivar and so I had to try. “His legs are not dead, and at times they stiffen and cramp.” I paused, giving Lagertha a moment to grow curious and nod at me to continue. “His mother made a salve for him, a magical one, and rubbed it on him in a certain way, which always gave him great relief. She was, as you know, a great _spae-_ wife.”

Lagertha frowned. She hated Aslaug’s magic, believing this was how she had stolen Ragnar’s heart away, but I could not keep myself from singing the dead woman’s praises right now.

I rushed to my point before I lost her. “Ivar’s moods are always better after he receives this medicine. He is less likely to cause trouble when his pain is reduced.” I waited until her thoughtful nod showed me she saw where I was going with this.

“And you know where this medicine is?”

“I know how to make it,” I countered, “and I am the only person now alive that knows the spells Aslaug spoke as she administered it. Without those, it is useless.”

Lagertha sat back and glanced at Astrid, then stared back at me with a mirthless twist to her lip. “And there it is.”

My stomach jumped.

“I was wondering why you would suddenly offer to help.” She leaned forward on her elbows. “I know that you hate me. You are not offering this out of the goodness of your heart. You want me to allow you to go to Ivar, though I cannot fathom why you would bother. I thought you would be grateful that I have kept him away from you.”

“He needs the treatment,” I protested, “he has never gone this long without it in his life.” I did not know if that was true, but it sounded good.

Lagertha narrowed her eyes. “How close are you and he?”

“I… have come to care for him,” I admitted carefully, “he is my friend.”

“You have not even been at Kattegat for three moons yet. How good of a friend could he be.” She was testing me now, watching my reactions. She knew we had been somehow involved, but it seemed she hadn’t considered I might have gone to him willingly.

“You forget I was here before, during your long campaign to Paris. We are childhood companions, that is all.”

Lagertha only raised an eyebrow. “That was the year he killed a child with an axe, was it not?”

 _He was only a child himself,_ I wanted to say, but I thought of a better way to make my case. “Yes, Lagertha, so you know what he is capable of when he is angry.”

That was not the response she had expected. Lagertha exchanged glances with Astrid again. “Sigrunn, are you actually asking me if I will allow you to go join Ragnar’s sons in order to practice Aslaug’s witchcraft?”

“It is not seiðr. It is just healing,” I insisted.

Lagertha looked at me for a long time. She seemed disappointed in me. “It does seem prudent to keep Ivar comfortable. I will allow you to go to him. Once. You will bring a slave with you, and you will teach her what to do, and then she will take over the healings.”


	2. he needs comfort

It was no accident that Astrid was the one escorting me and the quiet girl named Eyja up to the Ragnarssons’ cabin. Any shieldmaiden could have kept charge of me, but Lagertha trusted only Astrid to read the emotional situation in the room and report everything back to her. I debated whether it was worth even trying to hide my reactions; what would it gain me? Lagertha already knew Ivar and I were involved. Had been involved.  There may be little point in hurting Ivar by hiding my feelings when I saw him.

I tried to slow my breathing as we approached the little cabin, nestled in a clearing amidst the tall, straight trees. We hadn’t sent a messenger ahead; had only to hope that the boys would be at home this morning. I saw a familiar form step past the shuttered windows as we drew closer and my chest relaxed a little; Ubbe at least was there. We would not be reasoning with Ivar alone.

The eldest brother opened the front door with a creak as we entered the yard; he must have heard the crunch of our feet in the brush. “Princess Sigrunn,” he called, “I did not expect Lagertha to ever allow you to visit us up here.”

“An exception has been made,” Astrid clarified before I could speak, “with very limited purpose.”

We were at the threshold now, the slave staying meekly behind me. Ubbe nodded curtly to Astrid and then looked down at me. “To what do we owe the honor?” he asked, hands encircling my shoulders in warm greeting.

“Let her in already, Ubbe,” Ivar’s voice demanded from the dim inside the cottage before I could answer. A thrill shuddered through my chest at just the sound of him. Ubbe made a sympathetic face and stepped back out of the doorway.

I entered first, though Astrid was close on my heels. The cabin was just one big room, a large bed dominating the far wall, a warm hearth blazing at the center and a long table with two attached benches forming a living area closer to the door. Ivar was perched at the edge of one of these benches, leaning toward me like a starving man. Hollow eyes bored into mine, looking just about as mad as they had earlier in the throne room. Only this time instead of wanting to kill, they wanted to take. Ivar looked at me like I was a treasured possession that had been kept from him too long and extended his open hand to draw me in.

I hadn’t decided how I was going to react when I saw him. It wouldn’t have mattered; at that moment I almost tripped over my own feet trying to go to him. A sudden band of steel on my arm held me back: Astrid’s hand. Ivar’s lips peeled back in a snarl as she spoke over our moment. “This is not a social call. We are here for one reason only.” She pulled me to the side so that the slave could enter with her basket. “Sigrunn has informed us that Ivar requires a medicine. She is here only to teach this slave how to administer it.”

“No,” Ivar snarled instantly, as I had expected he might. “I do not agree to that. I do not want this slave to touch me.” He looked her up and down with a scornful curl to his lip.

“Then we will leave right now, Ivar,” Astrid said, rolling her eyes. “It doesn’t matter to me if you want to let your pain grow worse.”

“Ivar…” I said softly, pulling his glare back to me. “It is the only way Lagertha would agree to let me come.” I widened my eyes, pleading with him to be reasonable.

Ivar’s hand clenched around the end of the table. I could see him struggling to get his rage under control. Compromise was so difficult for him.

Ubbe stepped around us, laid a hand on Ivar’s shoulder. “Be reasonable, brother,” he said. “Let them soothe you. I know the pain has been getting worse. You are becoming very difficult to live with.”

From the great hall to this shack in the woods; I could barely imagine how the irritable brothers were managing to spend every day in such close quarters.

Ivar swept his gaze back to Astrid. “ _She_ will wait outside,” he said imperiously.

Astrid narrowed her eyes back at him for a moment, considering. They had to have expected he would require that. “Of course,” she said, finally releasing her grip on my arm. “As long as you understand what Sigrunn’s time here is for.” I could not stop my feet from carrying me to Ivar’s side as soon as I was free. “And that I will be right outside. Listening.”

Ivar ignored her; he was too busy running his hands up my sides, watching my face descend over him, his lips parting and eyes suddenly desperately tender. A kiss was an appropriate greeting amongst friends long-parted, but I do not think that we managed to fool anyone when my fingers curled over his jaw and our lips melted into one another’s. The world narrowed for a moment as I tried to savor the press of his mouth on mine. He did miss me. Finally his arms were around me again.

A tsk-ing hiss from Astrid cut us apart. “No more of that, or I will not be going outside at all.”

I pulled back from Ivar far enough to take a seat on the bench next to him. His brows were already knitting together in frustration. I spoke quietly, trying to draw him in to focus on me and the business at hand. “Your mother taught me how to make your salve, before...” His frown deepened. Probably it was just due to the reminder of his mother’s death, but it was still disheartening to see his face so dark. “You must be in great need of it by now.”

“What I need are these healing hands,” he argued, winding his dirty fingers between mine, ignoring the way Astrid cleared her throat and stepped closer.

“You will have them,” I said, squeezing once before pulling away, “for today, at least. Shall we begin?”

Ivar heaved a great sigh, trying to tell me a great many things with only his longing eyes. Then he shook his head slightly, dropped to the floor and headed toward the bed. “I am not undressing until she leaves,” he spat back toward Astrid.

“We will all step out while you undress, Ivar,” Astrid replied. “Your brother can help you get situated.”

I could see how much it irked Ivar that he was not in control of the room. It was something that bothered him on any occasion, made worse by the fact that the topic was so personal this time. His mother had always been the one to provide his care, and now it was in the hands of hated enemies. “We can come back another time,” I said gently, though I was not entirely sure that was true. I just wanted to give him some feeling of choice in the matter.

“This is as good a time as any,” Ivar said as he heaved himself onto the bed, movements jerky with his irritation. “Especially since Sigurd is out. Less crowded in here.”

The women stepped outside to wait as Ivar undressed. Astrid fixed me with a stern look, eyes narrowed by more than just the morning sunlight. I shifted uncomfortably and tried to look innocent.

“The rumors are true, aren’t they.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“He seems very infatuated with you.”

“Perhaps.”

Astrid tilted her head, gave me a mocking smile. “That was how you kiss all your friends then?”

“Ivar is grieving, and all alone,” I snapped at her. “You took his mother and his home from him. He needs comfort.”

“Careful what kind of comfort he seeks,” she warned. “Harald did not leave you with us to get you impregnated.”

“My father did not leave me with _you_ at all,” I replied, voice heavy with venom. I could not speak this way to Lagertha; it felt good to finally get it out.

Unfortunately, Astrid did not seem affected by my words. “Nevertheless, we take our responsibility for your well-being very seriously. You are here right now _only_ because Lagertha wants you to care for Ivar’s legs. That is all that you are to do while you are in there.” She turned to the slave. “Eyja, do not let him put his hands on the princess.” She noticed the girl wince. “Do not be afraid of him. I am right here, just call to me if they are,” Astrid’s eyes slid to me again, “doing anything _untoward._ ”

I sniffed at her arrogantly. Ubbe opened the door and beckoned us. “He is ready now.”

Astrid gave me one more significant look and took a seat leaning against the wall, directly under the open window. She would hear every word that was said inside.

Ivar lay on his back in the center of the great bed against the far wall, his tunic still on and his legs covered by a thin blanket. Ubbe sat down on the bench by the door; he was apparently staying too. That was probably for the best.

I pulled the bottle of the ointment I had made yesterday out of Eyja’s basket. I had described the procedure to the slave earlier; the task at hand was mostly to get Ivar to accept her as the one to treat him in the future. The two of us approached the bedside; Ivar had eyes only for me.

“This is Eyja; Lagertha has assigned her to come and do this for you once a week.”

“Surely she could spare you just as often,” Ivar countered, capturing my hand and raising it to his lips. “I miss you, Sigrunn.” He kissed my knuckles, then tried to pull me closer. “I need you with me.”

My whole body flushed. How I had longed to hear those words from his lips again.

“Get on with it!” came Astrid’s voice from the open window.

Ivar lifted his head toward the portal like he was about to shout back at her. I pressed my lips to his before he could start. “Calm yourself, or she’ll take me away right now,” I whispered into his cheek. Then I straightened and turned to the slave. “Do you remember the incantation?” Heat was creeping up my cheeks as I realized she had seen me kiss Ivar so intimately, and Ubbe too, but I was still glad that I had done it.

Eyja and I held the bottle between us and chanted over it the words Aslaug had taught to me, quick and low. I knew from the last time I did this that the spell wasn’t really necessary; the healing was in either the herbs or in our hands. But the more complicated we made it look, the more time it bought me with Ivar. I left the bottle in Eyja’s hands and knelt on the bed, laying both my palms on Ivar’s blanketed right leg. I gave him what I hoped was a reassuring smile. “Are you ready?”

“For you? Always,” the prince smirked, adjusting himself obviously under the blanket. The throwaway line was somehow more endearing because he knew I knew that it wasn’t even true. The intimacy of a shared secret, knowledge of a vulnerability I did not judge him for, wrapped us up like the warmest fur. We both grinned when we heard Astrid make a disgusted noise at his comment.

I folded the blanket off most of Ivar’s leg, then beckoned the slave to come kneel at my side and watch the way I worked the ointment into his cramping muscles. They were so much worse than they had been before he left for England. It had been so long since his last treatment, and he had been through so much. I closed my eyes and started praying as I rubbed his muscles briskly, just as I had the last time. This poor man needed any help I could convince the gods to give him.

Ivar relaxed with an appreciative smile as we became engrossed in the work, but after a few minutes I felt his hand creeping up the side of my leg where I knelt on the bed by his side. He must have decided the slave was too distracted to notice. His fingers melded to the curves of my thigh, moving almost contemplatively, like he was feeling me for the very first time. I bit my lip and said nothing. I had been craving his touch for too long.

Ivar’s hand paused every time I rocked my knuckle into a particularly stubborn spot. It wasn’t like he was trying to seduce me, he seemed to be using the touch just to reconnect. I moved up to the tight muscles on the outside of his hip. “Do not be afraid to use pressure,” I instructed Eyja, trying to teach her the work as best I could with only one demonstration.

Ivar responded to my words with a mischievous squeeze around my bottom, which I ignored.

“Sometimes a small amount of pain is required to be effective,” I continued. I should have expected the pinch at my arse cheek for that one. I hid my resulting jump by standing up, pulling back out of his reach. “Now you try, Eyja.” I sat down at the foot of the bed and tried to savor the delicious heat winding through my core from that inappropriate touch. Ivar laced his fingers behind his head as the slave took my place at his side. He looked at her sourly, but at least he held his tongue.

“How is Lagertha’s hospitality to you, Sigrunn?” Ubbe asked from the table. I had almost forgotten he was still there.

“Not as warm as your mother’s,” I replied sadly, “but I am comfortable, and never alone.”

“She keeps you under guard too?” Ubbe said, surprise coloring his voice.

“I am a hostage, as I always have been,” I shrugged, “Lagertha sees no need to pretend otherwise. She thinks herself surrounded by enemies, and is not sure if my father is among them.” Ivar grunted. I kept an eye on Eyja’s hands as we talked, but her technique looked good. “My job is to exist here, to cause no problems, and to be returned to my father safe and unharmed so that the same can be said for Bjorn and Hvitserk.”

“Do you really think there was a danger of your father betraying us?” Ivar asked casually from the bed. I whipped my head back to him, surprised at the boldness of the question. His face looked relaxed, like he was just making conversation, but there was something crafty behind his eyes. “Harald still needs Kattegat to achieve his aim of becoming King of All Norway, after all.”

_He is saving you all for last,_ I wanted to tease. But there were too many shrewd listeners that would take that comment seriously. So I deflected. “Those are indeed the terms he was set if I am ever to have a stepmother.” I gave Ivar my sweetest smile. “Perhaps one day soon I shall outrank you; me your sovereign princess and you just one of my humble subjects.”

“Come on, pet,” Ivar scoffed, “can you actually imagine _me_ humbled?”

A memory flashed behind my eyes, Ivar’s face slack and enraptured as I brought his cock to life in my hands. The vivid image sent another pulse between my legs right then and there. “It is not so difficult to picture,” I said with a wicked twist to my lips.

Ivar responded with a dark grin of his own. “Or maybe,” he said, sitting up a bit more to lean his head menacingly toward me, “after I get my revenge and sit on the throne at Kattegat myself, I will defeat your father and remind _you_ what humility tastes like.”

A delightful shiver ran up my spine as I watched the storm kick up behind his eyes.

“Brother,” Ubbe scolded, “that is exceptionally foolish talk. You know who is listening.”

Ivar lifted his brows and looked toward the window. “And she already knows that I vowed to come for Lagertha. She just doesn’t know when.”

“Ivar…” I said, tone somewhere between warning and pleading. How to explain that the only reason I was allowed to be here, the only reason he was being allowed a slave to care for him, was the hope to stop him talking like this? If Astrid didn’t believe it was working, they would remove that care without compassion or remorse. I came to Ivar’s other side; the bed was so large I had to climb onto it to do so. I laid my hand on his head and gently pushed him back into the pillows. “No more talk like that. Now is the time to rest.” He glared at me, but relaxed his body, allowed me to keep stroking his face. “Let us give you ease.” I looked over at Eyja. “That leg is just about done. Hand me the salve, I will start on this side.”

I left one hand on his forehead as I reached across to take the bottle from the slave. When I looked back at his face, my breath caught at the sight of Ivar melting under my touch. The heavy burdens he had been carrying, grief and rage and responsibility for vengeance, were all showing in the corners of his eyes now. They were going soft and liquid like a child’s. I couldn’t stop myself from leaning in and kissing his brow. Ivar sighed softly as the slave cleared her throat.

“I know,” I whispered to her, pulled back and refolded the blanket to uncover Ivar’s other leg. The prince looked back and forth between us with a pout forming on his lip.

“Mind your business, slave,” Ivar said.

“She is,” I said quickly. “And I think she is learning very well, don’t you?” It was probably a mistake to ask while he was irritated with her, but I was so conscious of Astrid listening at the window, ready to pull me away in an instant if she thought we were misbehaving.

“Her hands are clumsy,” Ivar complained, and I winced.

I tried to catch Eyja’s eye with an apology ready in my face. “I am sure that mine were too, at first.”

Ivar turned his petulant face back to mine. “I do not remember it that way.” He widened his eyes to convey his sincerity.

I didn’t think Ivar had ever been his nice to me. My whole body was thrumming under his approval, and the plain and unapologetic way he was making his need for me known.

I leaned over my hands, massaging deeply into the center of his thigh. “She will get better,” I promised, holding his drowning eyes with mine, “but I will take care of you, today.” My voice was dropping to a whisper, embarrassed again at the number of listeners.

Ivar smiled faintly, a genuine expression like the sun peeking briefly from behind thick clouds.

“Eyja, come around here and watch my hands,” I instructed. I desperately wanted her to do this well for Ivar, and I wanted him to accept her next visit.

As soon as the slave was settled by his ankle Ivar was stroking me where she could not see, again. His hand was more insistent now, curling over my hip, kneading into my waist. I lifted up onto my knees to press harder into a stubborn knot and he curled his fingers between my legs, brushing against my sex before I sat back down and forced his hand away.

Ivar was staring at me with lidded eyes and wrapping his caresses around my waist now, not really bothering to hide what he was doing. I saw Eyja’s eyes go wide as she noticed. She was gathering her courage to call out to Astrid. I shook my head at her curtly and then leaned closer to Ivar’s ear.

“Ivar, you have to stop,” I whispered, loud enough for Eyja to hear but hopefully too low for my voice to carry out to Astrid. Ivar’s hands continued to roam. He had a determined set to his jaw and he wouldn’t look at my face. “Don’t give them something to use against you,” I tried. “Don’t let them be sure what I am to you.” My face flushed after the last words came out of my mouth. I wasn’t even sure what I meant to him. It felt presumptuous to say such a thing out loud.

I should have felt relieved when Ivar finally dropped his hand and complied, but I wasn’t. An icy chill was running down my back, my last words ringing in my ears as Ivar shut down, closing his eyes and lacing his fingers behind his neck with and irritated huff. I was suddenly terrified that I had embarrassed myself, assumed something about our relationship that was not true. I was desperate for reassurance and had no idea how to get it now. I was the one that had just advised hiding our feelings.

Ivar was no longer looking at me. His eyes remained lightly closed; he allowed us to continue working his leg, but there was a slight sneer to his lips and I was losing all confidence in what I was doing here. Suddenly my own hands felt uncertain and clumsy. I had wanted him to stop pushing, but now he had pulled back so far I felt lost. I couldn’t think of what to say to bring him back to me. He was only doing as I had asked but it was breaking my heart already.

Hoping my voice didn’t show the disappointment I was starting to feel, I asked Ivar to turn over so that we could finish the treatment.  He still did not look at me as I held the blanket out of the way while he flipped himself.

The slave and I started working on both his calves at once. I was starting to see less of a point in dragging this out, now. I had been so grateful to finally be able to see Ivar again, but now I was just feeling… confused, and strangely hurt, by the way he was giving me the silence I had asked for.

After several minutes Ubbe suddenly stood. “I am going to see if Astrid wants some company,” he explained when I looked over at him. He flashed me a sly smile on his way out and I felt a jolt of nerves. Was he going to try and distract her for us? I looked back down at Ivar; his eyes were open again and I could see his mind working out how to best take advantage of this. A new rush of excitement started to cover over my moment of insecurity.

We listened to Ubbe striking up a conversation with Astrid outside, heard him find a reason to draw her further away from the window. Ivar wasn’t moving, didn’t try anything. I rubbed more salve into the back of his thigh, the slave silently copying my movements on the other side.

“Eyja,” Ivar said in a low voice when we were almost done. “I am getting cold. Go and fetch a few more logs for the fire, yes? They are stacked by the chopping block at the other end of the clearing.” He inclined his head toward the back door, on the wall opposite to where Astrid stood guard.

Eyja looked up at me, nervous question in her eyes. “I am not going to do it,” I said coldly. I suppressed a tiny flash of sympathy for the position we were placing her in; I wanted Ivar’s plan to work as much as he did. “Go, now.”

I watched the timid girl slide off the foot of the bed and scurry over to the door, wondering how much time Ivar had just bought us. As soon as the rough planks hit the doorframe Ivar was up on his side, his long arm reaching out and pulling me down almost roughly to lay beside him. I stretched out on my back willingly, heart leaping at the urgent need I saw brimming in his eyes before he closed them and covered my mouth with his own. Ivar pulled his body on top of mine quickly and kissed me like he was sucking life itself from my lips. My hands scrambled up his back, desperate to pull him even closer into me. His weight and his heavy kiss were almost suffocating me and I didn’t care, I couldn’t worry about my next breath, I just needed Ivar to possess me in every way right now. My _kunta_ was already on fire and our hips were grinding together like they would merge.

“Sigrunn,” Ivar moaned against my mouth, “I—“ he interrupted himself to kiss me again. He cupped his hand around my face and squeezed, forcing my jaw open wider to his tongue. I sucked on it shamelessly. It was not that my earlier insecurity was gone, but that very torment was somehow propelling me toward Ivar now, fueling some wild need to prove my devotion to him. I hoped he was keeping track of the minutes we had left before the slave would return and we would have to act like this hadn’t happened. I was in a place without time right now.

Ivar’s fingers were digging into my shoulders, his teeth scraping and crashing against my lips as he growled a noise somewhere between frustration and warning. It was like he wanted something deeper than sex from me, something our bodies weren’t actually capable of. I held him to me tightly, scraping my fingers over his scalp and trying to make myself ready for anything that he might do next.

Ivar was grazing his teeth down my neck with bruising force when the front door to the cabin slammed open. I saw Astrid’s scowling face appear over Ivar’s shoulder a moment later. “Get up,” she said acidly. Eyja stepped in behind her, firewood clutched to her chest and an apologetic look plastered across her face.

Ivar didn’t even lift his head, just twisted where he lay in the crook of my neck until he could make eye contact with Astrid. “She is _mine,_ ” he growled, “you are not taking her from me.”

“Don’t be silly, Ivar,” Astrid said. “There is no way you could think we would possibly allow a royal hostage to be _besmirched_ by you.” Ivar’s grip on my shoulder tightened in anger. “Sigrunn, get up. You took advantage of Lagertha’s generosity. It won’t be happening again.”

The game was up. I pushed against Ivar, trying to comply with Astrid’s order.

“Lagertha has already taken everything from me,” Ivar hissed, lifting his head but refusing to get off me. “She cannot keep Sigrunn from me too.”

“She can,” Astrid said coldly. “We would not allow Sigrunn to stay with you even if you snuck off and got married in the woods, or if she turned out to be carrying your child. You’re smarter than this, Ivar. You know her father would never approve of what you want.”

Ivar made a scoffing noise, but his eyes were going distant as furious thoughts warred in his head.

Ubbe stepped closer, approaching the other side of the bed. “Now is not the time for this particular fight, Ivar,” he said. “Let the princess up.”

Ivar twisted his face up at his brother in an expression I couldn’t quite read. Then he looked back down at me, blue eyes burning into mine. “They cannot keep me away from you for long, this I promise.” His lips met mine in one last defiant kiss, and then he rolled off me. Ubbe’s hand was there to help me up, then Astrid was all but dragging me out of the cabin.

 

I kept catching Astrid looking at me as we hiked back in silence. She no longer seemed angry with me.

“He has a pleasing face, I'll give you that,” she mused. “More handsome than any of his brothers.”

I refused to react.

“It is not my business, but please don’t fall in love with him.”

“You are right, it is not your business.”

Astrid sighed. “We do not know each other well,” she acknowledged, “but you seem like a sweet girl. You do not deserve someone like that.”

“People always underestimate Ivar. He is going to be a great man.”

“I don’t mean that you deserve a great warrior. I mean that you deserve someone who will be kind to you, and who will try to make you happy.”

Something in my chest jumped, and I deliberately pushed it down. “You do not think Ivar can do those things.” I was careful to make it clear in my tone that I did not agree with her.

“He thinks of no one but himself.”

“That is not true,” I said, perhaps too quickly.

Astrid inclined her head. “I am sure that you know better than me, what he is like,” she said smoothly. And then said no more. At first I thought she was admitting defeat. But as the silence stretched out I had to realize that this was the exact argument I had been having with Ivar himself, before he left. I did not want to believe he was truly and always selfish, but he had not actually proven himself otherwise to me yet. Still, I resented Astrid pointing it out to me.

“He is in pain,” I said softly. I meant it in every sense of the word, and I hoped Astrid realized she had had a hand in that pain.

“And he always will be,” the dark-haired shieldmaiden replied, letting the rest say itself. _Don’t hope that he will change._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for waiting so patiently for the next installment of the story! Two more chapters will be coming in the next two days, then there will be another long stretch as I keep banging away at my keyboard trying to make something beautiful for you.


	3. throne room

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> watch out, this one does not end on a happy note. Angst and angsty angst and a painful sex act, fair warning. But it won't be long before the next chapter posts and I help you feel a smidge better.

I was exhausted, and yet I could not sleep. Lagertha had meant it when she said everyone in Kattegat was to do their part on the construction of the fortifications; even a princess was being made to slog dirt and carry stones out of her ditches. Perhaps I could have refused to help, perhaps if I had Ivar’s strength of will, but attempting to protest the labor only seemed petty to me. I was convinced this was also part of how Lagertha was keeping a watchful eye on me. As long as she was out at work, so was I, and always somewhere that she could see me.

Perhaps Lagertha hoped to distract me with exhaustion, but it wasn’t working. No matter how tired the day left me, I still found myself haunted by memories. Ivar’s grief-stricken face when I found him in the market. His fingers clutching at me as I peeled myself away. The pressure of his body on top of mine, trying to climb inside me with his kiss. Ivar needed me. He was all alone in his pain; his brothers had never understood him and I doubt their company was very helpful to him now.

 _But do you need him?_ a voice whispered from the back of my mind. My body certainly seemed to; all I had to do was imagine his face and I could feel myself becoming ready for him. At night I thrashed and didn’t even want to touch myself. The disembodied press of my own fingers was not satisfying in the least. One night I even took my belt knife and pressed the cold blade against my own chest, curious to see if I could summon the strange feeling Ivar had overwhelmed me with that day by the cliffside.

Nothing helped the restless longing. I tossed and turned and sleep would not come. I watched the moonlight stream in through the slatted windows; it had travelled quite a distance since I had first lain down and attempted to find rest tonight. My bones were weary but my mind spurred me out of bed, frustrated and desperate for new distraction. The other women were filling the room with the soft chorus of sleep noises as I padded in bare feet over to the door; the night was warm enough that I did not even need to put anything over my shift.

I opened the door as silently as I could. Lagertha kept a guard on our door at night now; I think her job was as much to keep me in as to keep intruders out. I poked my head out and looked for her; the spiky-haired woman was as exhausted from the labors as the rest of us, and was softly snoring on the floor to my right. All I had to do was step over her and I could wander as I liked inside the great hall, so long as I avoided the guard on Lagertha’s chamber door. Perhaps I could find some comfort in pacing.

I held my breath as I lifted my skirt so it wouldn’t touch the shieldmaiden, crossing over her with one dainty step and then dancing on my toes down the corridor away from her. There was a juncture next, where Lagertha’s guard might be able to glimpse my crossing. I peeked around the corner warily, then darted through the space when I saw she was looking down the other direction. My heart raced as I waited for a cry of alarm or sounds of pursuit, but by the time I reached the great hall itself I decided my evasion must have been successful. This was all probably too exciting to help me achieve the mood for sleep, but the damage was already done.

I was two steps into the hall when I realized I was not alone. A hooded figure wrapped in a dark cloak crouched in the center of the wide empty space, staring at Lagertha’s new throne and playing with a large knife. My heart jumped high into my throat when I caught the edge of his face and realized who it was. I was not the only one taking advantage of the exhaustion of the guards tonight.

“Ivar,” I called softly, stepping slowly toward him, trying not to surprise him into a shout. He turned his face toward me then, jaw clenched and blue eyes filled with murderous intent. He looked like a predator interrupted at its kill.

His expression softened when he recognized me. “Sigrunn,” he said, glancing back at the throne and then at me again. “Is it really you, or do the gods torment me with your image?” His voice sounded soft and strange.

My feet danced me over to his side, but something was wrong. Ivar’s eyes were distant, he wasn’t pulling at me with that seductive gaze as he had every other time we had a chance to be alone. “I am here, Ivar,” I replied, kneeling down beside him as he turned to look back to the throne again. He made no move to touch me. I reached out, covered his hand with mine and looked up at his face with wide eyes. “I could not sleep. Perhaps I sensed you. What are you doing here?” I leaned closer, but Ivar pulled away with creased brows. My heart sank, straight into a sickly dark pool opening up in my belly. “Why do you not embrace me?”

“I do not even want to look at you, if I cannot have you with me,” Ivar said, staring at the wall. “I can only bear so much pain at once.”

Ice was spreading across my chest. “What are you saying?”

“I have to harden my heart now. There is no solace left in this world, not for me, not until I set things right.”

“I am here with you right now Ivar, please, just look at me.” I rubbed my thumb across the back of his hand, still motionless beneath mine. “No one knows that we are here. We actually have a chance…”

He finally turned his gaze back to me, flat and terrible. “A chance for what? My heart is dead,” he said. “I have nothing left but vengeance in me.”

I was so frightened of that dead face but I could not back down. This was the second time Ivar had given me an opening to turn away from him, and the second time I chose instead to thrust myself deeper into his life. “I cannot bear to see you in such pain,” I said. His glare did not waver. “I will not leave you alone in it. Please,” I said again, reaching my trembling hand up to stroke the side of his face, “you are grieving. Let me comfort you.” It felt like a dangerous thing to touch Ivar without permission, but he allowed me to slide my palm up his cheek, wrap my fingers softly around the back of his head.

He closed his eyes, might have shifted to lean ever so slightly into my hand. “Do not give me pity,” he whispered. “I will not allow anyone to pity me.”

“It is not pity I feel, Ivar.” I shifted my body so our legs were touching, our chests just a breath apart. I laid my other hand on his back. “I miss her too.”

I felt Ivar’s muscles tense, preparing for movement, and in that split second I feared he might strike me. Then he emitted a choked sob and buried his head in my chest. His arms wrapped tightly around my waist and he wept silently in tortured spasms that rocked both our bodies. My eyes grew hot and wet as well, partly for Aslaug’s memory but also in compassion for him. Ivar was only barely a man and had already had to leave his father to a torturous death, then came home to find that his mother, the only person he was certain cared for him in this world, was slain as well. I remembered how it felt when my own mother died; I tried to picture walking away from my own father’s execution and clutched Ivar tighter to me.

After a few minutes his sobbing stopped; I listened to him take deep, calming breaths still locked within my arms. His head rested almost contentedly against my chest, and I wiped the tears from my own cheek in his hair. Ivar broke the silence first. “Ubbe told me that you and mother became close, after I left.”

“We were beginning to, yes,” I said.

“They do not care that she is dead, you know,” Ivar said bitterly. “My brothers trip over themselves with eagerness to assure me how little they ever cared for Mother.”

“They don’t want to take the risks to avenge her,” I suggested. “They would rather pretend they never loved her.”

“No one is mourning her, but us,” Ivar lamented.

I sighed and pressed him more firmly to me. Hearing Ivar say “us” reassured me more than the tightness with which his arms held me, more than any kiss ever could.

Ivar rubbed his head in my neck, pulled away from me just enough to scrub at his face with the corner of his cloak. “I still don’t want to look at you,” he said, sliding his fingers under my hair and rocking back, drawing me closer to his center of gravity. “It is torture enough to feel your arms around me again, to breathe your scent…” Ivar inhaled deeply into the crook of my neck, then started pressing his mouth in sloppy kisses there. He moaned suddenly, as much agony and despair in the sound as there was pleasure. “I had almost forgotten the taste of your skin…”

I made a small sound of my own and raked my nails through the stubble at the back of his neck. Our grief was melting into some desperate urge to connect, a feeling very different from the other times we had come together, but not unwelcome. Ivar ate at my skin in hungry mouthfuls, making whimpering sounds like he might have still been crying. His fingers clutched at my hair, taking great handfuls close to the roots and tugging just short of painfully, moving my head this way and that to give him better access to the terrain under my jaw, behind my ear. I thought it strange how much I wanted him so shortly after speaking of the dead, but it felt natural, it felt right. I wanted to give Ivar every comfort that I could, and every time his teeth scraped across my skin I felt warmed, I felt fulfilled. This was the only thing I wanted for myself right now, too.

When Ivar’s mouth covered mine, I stopped thinking. His kiss was as deep as it had been in his cabin, smothering me, begging for some kind of more that I did not know how to give. I could taste tears on his lips, they may have still been falling from his eyes. Any pitying thoughts I may have had were lost in the press of his insistent tongue, invading me, demanding everything. I clutched him to me and tried to answer with the movements of my body. _I am here for you. I want only you, I will do whatever you need of me._

He pulled me into his lap, eyes flashing into mine only for a moment before he resumed his drowning kisses. I wondered if my lips were becoming bruised and my body started to fill with a chill tingling. I slid my hand down his stomach, searching for his cock. He was still soft, and when I gave him an encouraging squeeze Ivar batted me away without pausing his assault on my mouth. A moment later he pushed me down flat on the floor.

Ivar’s face loomed over mine. The weight behind his eyes was too much and I closed my own reflexively. “Look at me, Sigrunn,” he demanded, voice almost cold. I peeled my eyelids back, it felt like I was trying to stare at the sun. I could not read the thoughts behind his piercing eyes, but they were dark, intense, carried more than I felt prepared to bear. He started pulling up my skirt.

“She has taken everything from me,” Ivar said through gritted teeth, like we were in the middle of some argument that had already been raging in his mind. His rough hand was sliding between my legs. “Tell me she hasn’t taken you too.” When Ivar reached the apex of my thighs he did not stop, forced his fingers directly into me, too fast and too hard. I was too caught up in his eyes to protest. “Tell me you still belong to me.”

I opened my mouth to answer him, but he pumped those rough fingers into my protesting flesh and the only sound that escaped my lips was a desperate little screech.

“Why don’t you fight harder to be with me? Tell me you’re mine,” he repeated, bending his face closer, seemingly oblivious to my creased brows, the way I was pushing back against his shoulders.

I couldn’t stop the tears from leaking from my eyes. “Ivar, please stop!” I finally found my words.

Ivar rocked back, surprise widening his eyes. He stilled his hand but did not withdraw it from me. “Why are you crying?”

“You hurt me,” I said, pushing at his arm until he slid his fingers carefully out of me. Some part of me wished I had let him stay, was comforted by his touch even at a moment like this, but that delicate flesh felt raw and I needed him out.

“You like it when I hurt you,” Ivar responded, a note of confusion in his voice.

I rolled onto my side away from him and curled my knees toward my chest. “Not this time,” I said. I suddenly felt very small, very cold, and very foolish, lying on the dirty floor in the center of the great hall.

Ivar pressed his chest to my back, wrapped his arm over my shoulder and tried to pull me back toward him. “Why?” he demanded. “What is different? I thought you liked having me inside you.”

“It is not that simple,” I sighed. I couldn’t think right now, how to explain it to him. A voice inside me said I shouldn't have to explain this to him. “I am tired,” I said, still staring away from him as he hugged my back. “I am going back to bed.”

“No,” he forbade me, pulling hard against my arm as I came up to my knees, “I am upset now. You must tell me what is wrong.”

I shook my head as I got my feet under me. I felt numb and I just wanted to be alone. “I can’t explain this right now.” All I knew was that I wanted to be away from him.

“Then when will you have another chance to?” he cried, almost loud enough to wake a guard.  

I shot a worried look toward the doorway leading to the sleeping chambers. “I don’t know, Ivar, but you have exhausted me. I am going.”

I finally met his eyes as I pushed myself to standing, letting anger flash in my face so he’d allow me to peel his fingers off my arm. He was angry too, but there was such worry and sorrow beneath it that my resolve almost broke. Something deep within my gut wouldn’t let me collapse and tell him everything was alright. Some hidden, steely thing I did not know I had inside me pulled my spine erect and pointed my feet back toward my bed.

Ivar called me one last time before I left the room. “You never answered me, Sigrunn: are you still mine?”

I paused. He had to see me pause. I found that I couldn’t speak, couldn’t turn, but I paused. Then I strode forward again and disappeared into the darkness.

 


	4. the apology

When I was safely back in my bed I wept. Holding Ivar in my arms again, feeling his insistent kisses, it had all been so wonderful; then it had all gone horribly, horribly wrong. I hadn’t comforted him at all, had in fact probably left him more tormented than I had found him. But I had to. He had frightened me.

It wasn’t like the other times that he had caused me pain; those had been deliberate, erotic, controlled. Tonight he had just started taking out his frustrations on me; thinking about Lagertha while he kissed me, punishing my body just because I was her prisoner. Blaming me for my predicament as his angry fingers dug into the most sacred and sensitive part of me. In that instant, everything had changed. I felt dirty, used, and maybe a little angry. It no longer felt safe to be with him.

I worried, though. I worried Ivar would shut down on me, carry out the intention he had stated of hardening his heart and forgetting about me. The fear of that consequence stopped me from completing any other thoughts about how I wanted to be treated in the future. I had spent so much time trying to convince myself to walk away from Ivar, but I felt sick at the very thought of him being the one to draw back from me. I had to find the words that could make things right, without pushing him away. Though first I had to figure out how to find the chance to speak them to him at all.

The chafed ache between my legs was making it hard to let these thoughts go and find sleep, a burning reminder of how little Ivar thought of my dignity. Or was it only the fault of his clumsy inexperience? He saw the pain in my face and kept going. That would haunt me for a while.

I had wondered if Ivar was capable of love, now I had another question. Did his love come in a form that I truly wanted to receive?

 

I spent several days in this turmoil before I heard anything from him. I confess I snuck into the great hall every night, checking to see if Ivar would return. I feared being alone with him again and yet I wanted nothing more. Each day as I labored by Lagertha’s side I hoped he might approach, though I knew the guards would never let us speak. Even a glimpse of him might show me his mood. I still didn’t know what I would say to him, but to think Ivar would close his heart to me now felt worse than anything.

His message came from the slave Eyja, as we passed each other at the baths. She must have gone up to the cabin to care for him that day. She leaned in and softly said: “Ivar wanted me to tell you he is sorry for being so harsh with you.”

It was the last thing I had expected to hear. I could barely imagine Ivar puzzling over that night and wondering what _he_ had done wrong. His mind usually found fault only with others. Was he really sitting up there trying to figure out how to be better to me? My heart leapt into my throat.

As Eyja washed herself hurriedly, I realized here was another cause for hope; this girl was willing to carry messages for us. We had an ally in our isolation now. I pressed my hand to her shoulder warmly before she could leave to go back to her duties. “Tell Ivar that I have accepted his apology, when next you see him.” I thought about adding more but it would be a week before she would go up to the cabin again, so it was likely best to keep things simple.

 

I tried not to count the days until Eyja might be able to give me another message, but I did. There was nothing else to think on anyway, as the construction labor was physically hard but provided little diversion for my mind. My treacherous body had already forgiven Ivar, warmed even at the thought of his fingers slamming into me now, the memory of the pain fading away. Now I was mostly embarrassed for overreacting. When one week had passed I sidled up next to Eyja as we carried baskets laden with dirt from the ditch up to the growing palisade. Once no one was in earshot she leaned her head toward mine. “Ivar wanted me to say to you: he wonders if the flowers near Frigg’s grove are blooming tonight.”

 

I was so grateful to Máni for the full moon’s light this evening, as I picked my way up to what I assumed to be the place Ivar meant to meet me. Without its harsh glow I was sure to have missed the little game trail that led to the cliffside, the path Ivar had taken me down on that fateful day when our affair had truly started. The day he had marked me. The rune on my shoulder was only pale pink lines now, and likely to heal without a trace quite soon. If only my heart had fared as well after that day; how much lighter I would be if it had used Ivar’s absence to become smooth and untouched again. But every time I thought of his face and how he was being kept from me, the treacherous organ skipped a beat. It felt like his knife had pierced more than just skin and was lodged there now, refusing to let the wound scab over and erase this man from my heart. I had no choice but to go to him, and try and fix things between us.

My chest was tight as I crept into the clearing by the cliffside; the darkness of night made me even more frightened of stumbling too close to the edge. A dark shape loomed about five paces from the spot where the land dropped off. A few more steps closer and the moon’s light revealed that it was Ivar, sitting on an exposed ledge of rock and waiting for me with a face set to look purposely harmless.

“Sigrunn, you came,” he said warmly, extending his arm and beckoning me to sit by his side. His face looked so strangely soft. Was it just the moonlight tricking my eyes? Something seemed off about his calm.

A thrill of nerves ran through me as I went to him, still so uncertain what I would find in his embrace. He seemed to catch my hesitation, did nothing more than slide his hand over my shoulders as I sat down, bringing it to rest comfortably at the small of my back.

“I feared my message would not be received, or that you would refuse to come.” Ivar leaned toward me, and then I could see the difficulty with which he was holding himself back. He was trying to be polite, to be good, to not scare me again. “I can’t lose you, Sigrunn.” The weight of his need was still pressing behind his eyes. “...May I kiss you?”

Any resolve I had of being firm with him, of talking things out before I let him touch me, melted under that delicious question. He drew closer but waited for me to answer, his strange eyes almost glowing in the pale light. I should say no, and clear the air first. Set my boundaries. But he had just asked permission for something as simple as a kiss. Maybe he already knew what he needed to change, and I didn’t need to say anything. I was dreading the conversation anyway. Perhaps just a few kisses first, to calm me down. To reassure him we were going to be alright. I nodded, a little noise of assent creaking out of my frozen throat.

He traced his fingers up my arm and over my cheek, looking at me like he was trying to memorize the sight of me in the full moon’s light. He pushed a stray lock of hair from my forehead and drew the hood of my cloak down off my head. I had brushed out my hair and plaited it simply this evening, acting as if I were going to bed as usual. I hoped Ivar still found me beautiful, so plain and unadorned.

Ivar wrapped his hand lightly around the corner of my jaw, thumb resting on my cheek as his fingers curled behind my ear. His beautiful lips parted and he leaned forward slowly, gazing softly into my eyes, only closing his at the moment he brushed his mouth against mine. His lips were soft, like flower petals, and he traced them over mine a few more times with only the barest pressure. He waited until I was the one to press into him more eagerly, emitting a soft cry and trying to capture that fleeting, teasing kiss.

His jaw worked against me then, as Ivar started tasting my mouth like he was taking bites of the sweetest fruit. He gathered me up in his hands, drawing me closer. Did we really need to talk? I should stop him soon. His tongue advanced and retreated, coaxing me to open to him further.

Ivar’s palm slid over my breast, sensitive and unprotected with only the thin barrier of my sleeping gown covering it. What was it I was supposed to be explaining to him? He was trailing kisses down my cheek now, running his lips over my ear. His teeth closed in a tentative little nibble at my earlobe.

Pain. I needed to try and explain to him why sometimes I liked it when he hurt me, and why other things were just simply unpleasant. “Ivar, we need to talk about the other night...”

“Hush, you do not need to speak,” he said, low into my ear as he continued to tease it. “I have already figured out how to fix this.” He leaned back, captured my eyes with a gaze so designed to be sincere that it almost wasn’t. “I have been selfish, and too harsh with you. Now I am going to kiss you everywhere that I have hurt you. Let me prove my remorse.” He started working at the string holding my cloak over my shoulders. “I will make sure you know that I wish to make you feel things other than pain.”

I swallowed. That wasn’t exactly the problem, but it was close enough. The feeling of Ivar undressing me was too distracting for me to keep to my purpose; it felt so much better to just let him sweep me up and try to solve this his way. After he had pushed the cloak off my shoulders, he traced his fingers along the low neckline of my gown, over my chest and around the tops of my shoulders. “I started here that first night, worrying at your flesh with my teeth,” he said, then pressed neat little kisses all along my skin. The brush of his lips raised goosebumps in their wake.

Ivar looked up at me, concerned. “Are you too cold without your cloak, Sigrunn?”

I may have been, but the chill felt good. It reminded me of my near-nakedness and enhanced my excitement at being bared before him. “No,” I said to him. Besides, it felt amazing to have the brat prince Ivar suddenly so attuned to my needs; that was providing all the warmth I needed.

His fingers ghosted around my neck, a gentle replaying of the way he had strangled me on the night before he went to England. “I have abused your throat, in many ways,” he said, then leaned in to cover it in sweet, sucking kisses. He may have imagined his tone was apologetic, but that one almost sounded like a boast, and I could see that he was turning himself on with this litany. I did not mind; he was arousing me as well. Every one of these memories had been as precious to me as they seemed to him. I felt like I was in a bubbling spring, my whole body tingling and floating under his touch.

Ivar loosened the laces between my breasts so he could pull the gown off my right shoulder, revealing the first place his blade had cut me. A ripple of pleasure ran over his face when he saw the mark was still faintly there. “I parted your flesh here,” he said, carefully kissing every trace of the mostly-healed wound. He pressed his face into my shoulder and I felt his breath dance across my skin as he released a sudden sigh. I couldn’t tell if it was from remorse or passion.

“It has healed,” I said.

Ivar shifted his hips like his pants were growing too tight. “Let us go lay down in the grass. I am not finished.”

No, he was not. There had been a lot of pain for him to make up for yet between my thighs. My legs were already weak in delicious anticipation as I stood to find a soft spot to lay in the clearing. Ivar handed me my cloak so I could spread it out for us. I reclined there on one hip as Ivar dropped off the stone ledge and crawled over to me, eyes hot and bright.

He did not resume his project immediately. Ivar pulled himself up alongside my body and wrapped his hand around the back of my head, pulling me in to kiss me again on the mouth. At first he was sweet, controlled, still trying to prove his point, that he could be good to me. We collapsed onto our sides on the ground together, fingers twining in each others’ hair, and the press of his lips became more urgent.  “I need you to trust me, Sigrunn,” he breathed between kisses. “I do not ever want to see you turn away from me again.”

“Nor I, you,” I said, my voice breathy as well. “When you said you felt nothing for me, my heart stopped.”

Ivar pulled his head back to look at me, our bellies still pressed together, legs intertwined. His eyebrows creased slightly in sympathy. “Forget that I said that,” he instructed me. “I feel so many things for you that sometimes I cannot bear it.”

“It will be different when my father returns,” I promised him, snuggling my hips closer to his, thrilling to feel his hardness against my soft belly. “Lagertha is only keeping me away to punish you.”

“Punishing me for what?” Ivar said, and I winced, afraid of how this topic could change his mood. “For desiring my rightful revenge?” his gaze grew hard and he stared over my shoulder into the darkness. “She should be appeasing me. She should deliver you naked to my bed in the groveling hope that I may decide not to kill her.” He grasped my hip and ground me against him.

“Would that actually sway you?” I asked. A flash of hope rose in my chest; I would be happy to present this idea to her.

Ivar looked back down at me, eyes still dark and deadly. “Of course not. I told her. For what she did to my mother, her fate is fixed.”

I sighed, smiling at his ferocity despite my dashed dream. It was foolish to have thought she might agree to that anyway; I was not actually hers to give. I sensed Ivar’s arousal slipping away. I slid my palm up the side of his face, drew my thumb lightly across his furrowed brows. “Please, don’t let Lagertha ruin this night too.” I pressed my lips to his. “I am here with you, right now. Let that be enough.”

Ivar’s eyes softened as gazed at my face, collecting himself. “Yes, you are right. And you came to me at great risk.” He seemed proud of himself, somehow. “Was it difficult for you to slip away?”

“Everyone is exhausted from building the fortification,” I said, “but I drugged the shieldmaiden who guards me just to be sure. She should be sleeping on the floor until morning.”

“Mother’s seiðr?” Ivar asked, mouth twisting wryly. He was the only one who ever acknowledged she practiced some of the more forbidden arts.

“That was one I already knew, actually,” I admitted, bringing an affectionate smile to his eyes.

“My little Sigrunn is just a little bit wicked herself,” Ivar purred, running the backs of his fingers up and down my flank. “Willing to use magic to meddle with whatever fate the gods have decreed for you.”

I blushed faintly. Any magic used with the intent to change what the _norns_ had decided was supposedly evil, but every _spae_ -wife knew that the line dividing acceptable and unacceptable practice was entirely subjective and vague. Though it had never occurred to me to be proud of potentially crossing that line.

Ivar brought his face close to mine, eyes suddenly intent. “You are still mine, aren’t you.”

His inflection did not make it a question, but he was waiting for a response. I felt nervous; I wasn’t sure why. I took a deep breath and told him what he wanted to hear. “Yes, Ivar. My heart belongs to you.” It didn’t feel completely right. But we could not truly be together right now anyway. Whatever my truth ended up being, it would develop in time.

Ivar smiled, like my words were a relief, like they relaxed something deep inside of him. “And your body?” he asked next, raising an eyebrow and sliding his open palm over my curves. “Does that belong to me as well?”

That answer was easier, curved a smile into my lips as I responded. “Gods, yes,” I breathed, closing my eyes so I could better feel his hand curling possessively around my hip.

“Then allow me to finish paying you my apology,” he murmured in my ear, kissing the edge of my cheek chastely as he started pulling the thin linen of my night dress up. “I have done some awful things to you, down here.”

I shuddered in pleasure and rolled onto my back, helping him draw my skirt up over my hips. Ivar did not stop there, continuing to pull at the dress until I took it over my head and completely off. I shivered under his gaze, totally exposed now in the moonlight. A pleased growl rumbled out of his throat and he bent his head to my breast. “Have I hurt you here, too?” he asked, lifting one peak in his hand and swirling his tongue around my nipple.

“Never too badly,” I moaned, arching into him. He closed his lips and sucked lightly, making me toss my head at the intensity of the sensation. I wasn’t sure why my responses to his questions were so placating. I could have been using this as a chance to teach him how better to love me, but I found that I could not. His presence overshadowed me; when I was in his grip I wanted only to please him, and tell him what he wanted to hear.

“Still, I feel I owe you these kisses,” he said, mouthing his way under and around the soft flesh of my breast. “Better to be thorough.”

He was igniting me again, heat sparking through the center of me as his mouth dragged across my body. His tongue left my nipples wet and chill in the cool air; the contrast was delicious as the rest of my body was growing hot from his touch. Soon Ivar was sliding down my hip and I was more than ready for him to get there. He slid his hands between my legs, spreading them gently. I knew there were a few reddish lines remaining on the inside of my thighs. The cuts Ivar had made in that place, in the midst of his own passion, were deeper than those he had carved when he was more completely in control of himself.

He groaned when he saw them, a pleased rumble that sent a white-hot shock to my womanhood, laid out before him. Ivar licked those healing lines from end to end, propping himself up on his elbows and curling his arms under both my hips. His hot breath hit the wetness between my thighs as he turned his head to tend to the marks on the other side, and I moaned in helpless wanting.

Some of the marks he was kissing could very well turn to scars that I would bear for the rest of my life. In this moment the thought only thrilled me, so ready was I to be possessed by Ivar in every way. When he was done with them, he turned his eyes up to me, bending his mouth close to my center. “And last time we met, I hurt you here,” he said, his breath tickling my opening. His wicked eyes flashed as he pressed a kiss directly onto my slit.

“You did.” I shivered, squeezing my eyes shut. “You did not wait for me to become ready for you…” I said, the words I needed to say finally starting to tumble out.

“Quiet,” Ivar interrupted, a trace of irritation in his voice. Then he softened. “I will show you how well I can ready your body to receive me.” He continued to press his lips along my folds, and then his tongue was suddenly sliding between them.

“Ivar!” I hissed, curling my body in surprise.

He withdrew instantly, searching my eyes for understanding. “Does that not feel good?”

My _kunta_ was throbbing for him. “It felt amazing,” I answered truthfully, “I just never expected you would do such a thing.” I had heard women giggle about men kissing them there, but always with the implication that it humbled them somehow. I would never have been able to ask proud Ivar to try it on me.

Ivar’s brows jumped as he flashed me a cocky smile. “There is a lot you do not know about me,” he said, then dropped his face to kiss me again. His tongue pressed between those lower lips, more eagerly now. “You deserve all of the pleasure I can give you, Sigrunn,” he murmured into me, then pulled my legs apart wider until I lay completely open to him and he could lick and suck at me everywhere.

The sensation was sublime. There was no edge of roughness, his tongue and lips too soft to accidently hurt me if he became overeager. Heat was building rapidly through the center of me and every time his tongue brushed against the pleasure center above my opening, another lightning bolt flashed through my body. Ivar figured this out quickly, probably from the way it made my legs spasm and shake, and soon he was giving most his attention there, sucking and swirling.

I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I dug them into the ground, through the cloak spread out under us, so that I wouldn’t grab his head and disturb his work. Ivar’s eyes were closed in contented concentration, looking like he was enjoying this as much as I was. His tongue hit me just right and I moaned; Ivar opened his eyes and gave me another wicked grin before repeating the movement, slowly and deliberately. I could no longer hold my head up after that; Ivar flicked his tongue against that spot faster and faster until I felt pleasure so sharp it threatened to break me. My soft moans were running together into one continuous pleading keen; Ivar clawed his fingers into the flesh of my hips and growled into me without breaking that mind-blowing rhythm, urging me on. I came like a storm breaking, white lightning flashing behind my eyes and down my limbs, thunderous pleasure rolling in peal after peal as Ivar slowed but did not stop, sucking every last drop of it from me.

I sobbed in relief as the climax was ending. All of my fears and worries had broken with that moment of joy. I had his head in my hands, I was pulling him up and over me. I needed him close, so close. Ivar was mine. I was his. This was right and good and I should never have doubted anything. He settled his body next to mine, gathered me into his chest. There was a sheen of tears over my eyes when I finally looked up at him. His face seemed soft and concerned. “Ivar,” I said, “I am sorry. I am so sorry I ran away from you.” Those tears were leaking out now, and he wiped them each away with one finger and an awestruck little smile.

“Hush, pet.” he said as I tried to calm down. He continued to trace the tears across my cheek. “You are so beautiful like this.”

“Crying?” I sniffed, feeling self-conscious.

“Helpless in my arms.” He bent to kiss me again, pressing his body over mine. His erection was an insistent hardness against my thigh. “Completely undone by me, you wanton little thing.” He pinned my shoulders to the ground as he rolled his hips off me, but only so his other hand could start to loosen his pants. My breath caught in my throat.

He stopped himself, took one steadying inhale. When he captured my eyes again he looked a little less wild. “Can I take you now, Sigrunn?” he asked. I could see how hard it was for him to hold himself back, frozen as he awaited my permission for once.

“Slowly,” I said. If he could be kinder, I could be braver, tell him what I was actually thinking. “I want you, but I am still so new at this.”

Ivar’s answering smile was pleased, and aroused. “Of course, love,” he said, pushing his pants off his hips as he kept his eyes locked on mine.

I couldn’t keep my hands away when I felt his cock spring free against my hip. It was already harder than I remembered from our first night together. Somehow he had more confidence this time, even though I had so recently wounded him. I ran my hand over the velvety skin of it, loving the way the corners of his eyes pinched at the sensation, his mouth opening in a little sigh.

“I want you to get on top of me,” Ivar suggested, eyes wicked and intent. “I will lay back and let you go as slowly as you need.”

I shivered at the idea of my naked body rising above his, and nodded my assent.

As we repositioned, Ivar stripped his tunic off, pushed his pants further out of the way. “Come here, Sigrunn,” he beckoned.

I slid over him slowly as he came to rest on his back. Ivar ran his hands over my thighs as a straddled him, blushing slightly at the awkwardness of figuring out how things ought to line up. His cock hovered slightly above his belly, looking much too long. I was on my hands and knees, ready to lower myself over him when Ivar brought his fingertips to my face, drew me to look at him again. “You are doing great, love,” he reassured me. “Take your time. You are going to make me so happy.” His other hand ran over my ass possessively.

Ivar seemed so much older than he had been before going with his father. He hadn’t had this kind of confidence the last time he made love to me. He reached down and helped line his cock up for me, sighing softly as the tip of him made contact with my slick folds, rubbing along them sweetly as we attempted to find the right angle for entry.

We found the spot and at the first sign of resistance we both stopped moving. “Sigrunn…” he hissed, neck arcing back. I rested a moment, relaxing into the delicious pressure of him poised against me, trying to memorize the moment. As I felt his hardness threatening at my door it seemed I had been remembering wrong what this felt like; it was so much more intense, vivid and wonderful than just the memory. I started to let my hips sink down, but felt a great, dragging resistance. I pulled back, then remembered to spit into my hand and slide that wetness over his head and shaft.

Ivar rolled his head at the feel of that, then his burning eyes returned my face. “That’s it, you know what to do,” he said. This time we found the right angle more easily, and he sunk in a few inches before I wanted to pause again. Ivar groaned and squeezed at my hips, but stopped himself from pushing up into me. I rocked my hips experimentally; it felt good to slide back and forth over the ground we had already gained, warming my insides and helping me relax.

“Sigrunn, you are torturing me,” Ivar moaned, “I want to be patient for you but I need…” he cut himself off with another groan. “More. I need to feel you all around me.”

I held my breath and pushed down again, tried to welcome the deep pressure and allow him further into my body. I reminded myself that he had fit without pain last time, it just took time to adjust to his thickness. Seeing the ecstasy on Ivar’s face certainly helped; I felt myself opening to him as I watched his eyes roll back, and before I knew it my hips were resting against his. It felt deeper than I remembered. Perhaps this position was a more intense one. Ivar started rocking his hips softly and I moaned, feeling like I was filled to the brim.

“Hold still, let yourself relax,” Ivar cooed. His hands ran up my arms. “Bend closer, let me take your hair down. I want your golden hair spilling all around us when you start to fuck me.”

Heat flashed through me at the crude word. I inclined over his chest carefully, finding that the motion actually eased the pressure of him deep in my belly, and flipped my braid over my shoulder into his waiting hands. It was loose and came apart easily as I rested my hands on his shoulders, rocking my hips slowly, coaxing my body to open further as I watched him work on my hair. When every lock was free, Ivar brushed his fingers through it from roots to tip, smiling as he made it cascade all around his face.

“You are a vision,” he said. “As beautiful as Sif.” His hips were pumping up to meet mine now. His hands moved over my breasts, down my belly. “I do not want to close my eyes, and yet I can barely keep them open. You feel so good.” His voice rumbled in his throat as we pushed against each other with more vigor. “Sit back, take me deeper,” Ivar commanded.

I sank back on my heels, a small cry escaping my lips as it felt like he hit the very end of me. His next groan was possessive, proud. “I have completely filled you, haven’t I? Every last inch of you.” I moaned and rocked, it felt much better to move than to stay still now. “Mmm Sigrunn, I wish I could see you dance and moan for me like this every night.” Ivar’s voice was getting tight, his fingers digging into the flesh of my hips. “Faster.”

I increased my pace, trying to match the rhythm of his own hips, the press of his hands urging me on. I leaned over his shoulders again, started drawing myself up and down further, not enough for him to fall out but enough to capture that feeling of him sinking into me, claiming me over and over again. I rocked my hips down, again and again, until his face started turning red and tight. “Don’t stop,” he warned, and his breath started coming in gasps. An empathic rush swept through my own body as I watched his passion rise and break; his face screwed up and his hips locked into mine, shuddered against me. He moaned once more, ground his hips in one last slow circle, then collapsed with a sigh that had just a touch of a giggle to it.

I watched his face relax, my chest flooding with love for him. Finally, I had brought his heavy mind some solace. Ivar looked entirely at peace, eyes closed as he savored the afterglow. After a few more shaky, satisfied breaths I curled up carefully on his chest, letting his cock stay inside me as it softened. His arms wrapped firmly around my waist and I could feel his deep exhales tickling in my hair.

“Come back with me tonight,” Ivar murmured after a few minutes. “I cannot bear to let you go again.”

“They would only come get us in the morning,” I said, refusing to speak names and ruin the moment right now.

“Then let us go somewhere they won’t think to look. There is another hunting lodge further inland. Or I could hide you in Floki’s house while he is gone.”

“They would know it was you who took me,” I said into his skin, “if you hid me somewhere we would still be apart, because as soon as you came to me again they would only follow your trail.”

“It might be worth it. I will kill anyone that comes for you,” Ivar said, squeezing his arms around me.

“You know it won’t work.”

“Yes, I know that perfectly well. But if we keep talking, perhaps we will stumble across a better plan.”

“Wait for me to be freed, when my father returns,” I sighed. “Patience is the only way for us. We are too important to spurn the powers that be and go off on our own. We have to play their game.”

“I am good at games,” Ivar mused. “I will find a way to win this one.”

I did not doubt he would. I laid a trail of kisses across his chest, propped myself up high enough to look down over his face. My hair made a curtain on both sides, screening us from the world. “We will be patient, and careful,” I said solemnly. “I should go back now, so there is less of a chance anyone will notice me. It would be dangerous to wait until too close to dawn.”

Ivar creased his brows in that petulant face that so often got him his way, but all I did was kiss his outthrust lip. “We can keep speaking through Eyja,” I said, pulled myself from his arms and tossed my dress over my head. “How is she doing, with your legs?”

“Not as well as you would,” Ivar replied, pulling his pants back up. “But it helps.”

“I am glad of it,” I said, suppressing an immature pang of jealousy thinking of how she got to put her hands on him every week. “You know, Lagertha only agreed to send us because I convinced her you would be less likely to kill her if you were happier.”

“Then she is a fool,” Ivar said as he yanked his shirt down. “Even if I had you and everything else I wanted, even if she walked away from Kattegat and gave me the throne, I would still owe her her death.”

“Are you going to try for it soon?” I asked. “If you and your brothers take Kattegat back now, before my father returns… I would be _your_ hostage.”

Ivar’s eyes gleamed in the dark. “I thought you said the name of this game was patience.”

“Think about it,” I said in response, kneeling back down beside him as I pulled my cloak from the ground and gathered it around me. “I trust you to be shrewd, and make the wisest choice.” I said those words mostly to temper him, the boy who was often so impulsive. I didn’t want him throwing away his future just because he could not wait a year to marry me. Patience might yet be the better way; later we might be able to be together without so much risk.

Ivar pulled me into his arms one last time and kissed me deeply. I was almost stirring for another round by the time he let my lips go. “I will call for you again soon,” he promised. “We will find our ways to take comfort in each other, despite everything.”

 

When I crept through the dark passage behind the great hall, everything was quiet and empty. It wasn’t until I slipped through the door to the women’s sleeping chamber that I remembered there should have been a guard sleeping on the floor where I had left her, drugged in a happy sleep.

A shock of nerves like a bucket of cold water poured over my chest as I perceived a dark form sitting on my bed. “Princess Sigrunn. I was hoping you were going to come back to us,” Astrid said, voice cold. “I see that you’re not stupid enough to run away with him, at least.” Some of the soft snores from beds further back in the room sputtered and stopped at the sound of her voice. Astrid stood, stepped closer so I could better see her face in the thin moonlight penetrating from the high windows.

“I could not sleep, I only went out for a walk to clear my head,” I tried.

Astrid fixed me with a level gaze that took the full measure of me. She shook her head. “I found the guard, Sigrunn. I could barely rouse her. What did you do to her?”

“She won’t be harmed,” I said defensively. “She will wake with the sun fully rested. In a way, you could say I did her a favor, we have all been so exhausted…” I trailed off as Astrid refused to smile.

“I am within my rights to have you flogged for that. Using witchcraft against us.”

My eyes widened. “Please, it was nothing, really. She is perfectly safe.”

Astrid continued to loom over me, arms crossed. “I will tell Lagertha to show mercy this time, if you promise never to sneak away again.”

A flash of anger. I would not so easily agree to abandon Ivar. There were no sleep noises in the air now; everyone was awake and listening to us, I was sure of it.

“Sigrunn,” Astrid coaxed as I remained silent, “be reasonable. We cannot break your father’s trust, look the other way while you have secret trysts with the boy. It cannot continue.”

I lifted my chin at her, not knowing what to say but not about to agree with her. I could see Freydis’ eyes peering up at me from the edge of her blanket, though it was too dark to make out their expression.

“Fine, I won’t make you say it,” Astrid relented. “You are about to lose what little freedoms you had left, however. And I want you to think about this. If we catch you with Ivar again, we will haul him before the people and have him whipped for kidnapping. Lagertha may even use it as an excuse to banish him.”

My face fell, then. It broke my heart to imagine Ivar humiliated on my account, suffering in agony even though I knew he would take it valiantly. Even worse would be the banishment; I feared for his life if he were ever separated from his brothers and his birthright here. Who would care for him? His mother’s people were far away, and did not know him. I could not let this happen.

“I understand,” I said in a small voice.

Apparently still unsatisfied, Astrid leaned even closer. “If you prove too troublesome to us, we could always send you to Hedeby, and keep you in isolation until your father returns. Be smart, Sigrunn. Let Ivar go.” Her eyes softened. “I don’t expect you to see it now, but we do this to care for you. We want to be your friends. One day you will see this is for your own good. When your father returns he will find you a good man for a husband. Most likely he will be a king, with great lands and wealth to shower you with.”

 _Ivar will be all of those things, and his first step to get there will be killing your lover_ , I thought, but did my best to keep it off my face.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. I wonder if that was as a wild a ride to read as it was to write; I feel like I've been in a fever dream for the past month. Your support for this fic has been phenomenal and it would not have happened without all the people that reached out and told me what they thought. I have never tried to write a story past the part where the characters first do the deed. How am I doing on this one?
> 
> I will drop the next block of chapters once I write up to another satisfying pause in the plot. Next up: Daddy's coming home!! (also: I post intermittently about my progress and thoughts on this story on my tumblr: whenimaunicorn.tumblr.com using the tags #watch me drown, and #hold me down fic, if you're interested)


	5. why haven't you come to me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We’re in 4x17 now, which had two implied times jump of unspecified length. A good amount of time passes between 16 and 17, as Ivar’s hair is longer, and another jump happens during the episode, since it opens with the decision to create the Great Army and ends with some portions of that army actually arriving (which would realistically take a few more months). 
> 
> I wanted to write them moving toward a healthier relationship, but these stupid kids told me they wanted to keep taking advantage of each other for a while longer yet so I guess we're still singing that Eurythmics song here until one of them decides this isn't fun anymore… *some of them want to abuse you, some of them want to be abused…* new trigger warning: coerced throat fucking

I hated the slave called Margrethe, from the very bottom of my heart, the day Ubbe came and took her away from Lagertha. I had nothing against her personally; I barely knew anything about the girl. But it killed me to watch a son of Ragnar approach us boldly, lift her from the dirt and tell her she was free.

I had not seen Ivar in months. How I wished to be so unimportant as this slave, that Lagertha would not bother to stop her enemy from carrying her away in broad daylight, right in front of her. I was standing close enough to hear Ubbe say he wished to marry the girl. I pictured Ivar crawling up here and doing the same for me; the bitter image caused me to bark out some strange, chortled laugh. Astrid looked over at me with one arched eyebrow. She knew exactly what I was thinking. I wanted to claw her eyes out just for looking at me.

It wasn’t that I was sure I wanted to marry Ivar, though I confess I did dream of it. The longing was worse now because at our last encounter I had met a different version of him. That Ivar cared for my needs, kissed me sweetly and asked permission as he made me his. Though his presence still overwhelmed me, he had proven that night that he couldn’t be an entirely selfish person. He did think about what I wanted, and how I felt. I thought that though he toyed with me, he didn’t think of me as a toy. And there was a chance that if I tied my life to his one day, I might not regret it.

But being with him was still not yet my choice to make. Astrid had kept her promises; I was guarded at all times and saw no opportunities to go to Ivar that would not end in disaster. The slave Eyja still carried messages for us, but I made it clear that I was not going to take the risk of trying to meet again. I feared bringing Lagertha’s wrath down on him too much. When Eyja carried his responses back, I could feel Ivar’s irritation even through the simple words she whispered to me. And after that, there was not much left to say to each other. “I still miss you” only carries weight a few times when there are no changes.

When Eyja returned with a bruised cheek that she refused to talk about, I began to wonder which of Ivar's many passions he might be using her to slake. She was young enough, pretty enough for him. In my experience men of power used the slaves whenever they liked, why should Ivar be any different? Especially now that I had proven to him that his prick could work. Bitterly I realized I was envious of that bruise even if the blow had truly been the only way he had touched her. I knew there was something wrong with that thought, and yet I could not let it go.

I caught myself in long daydreams about Ivar and his brothers killing Lagertha, retaking Kattegat and with it custody of me. Something low and dark thrilled me at the idea of Ivar as my captor, with no one to put a check on the things he might want to do to me. Neither Ubbe nor Sigurd could control him, not really, and I began to wonder what was taking him so long, why he had not made a move on Lagertha already. I had no way to find out.

I was allowed to move about through the town as long as I was escorted by one of Lagertha’s shieldmaidens. I caught sight of Ivar or his brothers occasionally, though each time I was immediately steered in the other direction. I was able to sidle up to Ubbe only once, in the market, when my guard was distracted by something in a neighboring stall. I had but one thing to ask him. “Does Ivar… speak of me?”

Ubbe’s eyes were sympathetic, yet cold. “He speaks of gathering our army. He talks endlessly of how we are to take our vengeance against Lagertha.” Ubbe shook his head with sad eyes and a clenched jaw. “I like you, Sigrunn. I think it would be best if you stayed hidden in the hall until your father returns. Forget Ivar. Let him forget you. You are too sweet, and too kind for him. I would hate to see what he did to you.”

My heart cracked a little, but I could not follow his advice. Every time I was in town my eyes were scanning for Ivar. If I spotted him amidst the crowd before my guard did, we would have long, precious moments to stare at each other before she caught up and whisked me away. I would spend the next few hours dissecting the nuances of the tension in his brow or the turn of his lips. Did he still want me? Was he suffering from my absence? The months apart were weighing heavy, and I felt another stab of worry that he might soon decide to simply stop thinking of me. I had to do something; we couldn’t be together but I could not bear the thought of letting him go.

Today, I had glimpsed Ivar crawling into the blacksmith’s shop as I and my escort, a lovesick girl named Ingrid, made our way down to the market. The shieldmaiden was preoccupied, babbling at me about her new beau. She didn’t see the man on the ground or my secret smile for him as we passed.

Ingrid saw me as a captive audience for her prattle and often volunteered to take me when I wanted to go down to the market. Today she informed me excitedly that her new lover, Hakon, was likely to be there as well. He was a warrior who had come with one of the Earls who had arrived a few weeks ago, to join the Great Army that Ragnar’s sons were forming.

Lagertha discouraged those loyal to her from mingling with the new forces. She was polite to the arriving dignitaries, but she knew whose call they had answered. Ingrid had to sneak around to spend time with this boy. As I listened to her ramble on about him, I realized I could use this.

We did encounter this Hakon and a few of his companions in the main square of the market. Through the stilted, awkward conversation that ensued I could see the hunger in their eyes; all these two wanted was to slip away from their duties and spend some private time together. I drew my shoulders back and turned to Ingrid. “I would like to finish my shopping,” I said, adding a touch of haughty air to my voice. Reminding her of my rank. Then I let an indulgent smile crack through the façade. “But you seem to be enjoying your present company.” Ingrid giggled nervously and glanced at her beau. I leaned slightly toward her, dropped my voice. “I can finish my business without you,” I offered. “I promise I will go right back to the great hall when I am done, and cover for you.”

“Is Ingrid not supposed to be guarding you, Princess?” Hakon asked, brows furrowing.

“Just an honor guard,” I said quickly, “there is no true need for it. There are no threats to me here.” Not the most accurate summation of our relationship, but Ingrid was not a very quick thinker. Perhaps if the conversation swept her up fast enough, she would give into temptation and let me walk away.

The man’s smile split his face wide as he looked back at his lover. “If your lady has no need for you, I know a place we can go…”

Ingrid looked so tormented I almost felt sorry for her as she studied me for one long moment. I had been no trouble at all in the long months of my captivity, not since Astrid had threatened Ivar and me the last night I snuck out. Ingrid probably didn’t even know that story. I did my best to look friendly and pleasant. “Enjoy yourself, Ingrid; I will be fine by myself.”

Hakon took her hand and I saw Ingrid’s resolve crack. “Alright,” she agreed. “Do not stay out too long, Princess, or Lagertha will worry.” Then her eyes swept back to her lover and it was like I no longer existed.

I backed away from them and kept my steps purposely slow, heading toward a stall piled high with bright fabrics. As soon as I was out of Ingrid’s line of sight I covered my face with the hood of my cloak and rushed off in the direction of the blacksmith’s shop.

I tried to keep my feet from dancing as I wove through the crowded streets. I could only hope Ivar was still inside, otherwise I would probably waste all of my stolen time just in search of him. It felt strange to be unescorted after months of being treated like a prisoner; I was a little bit giddy with it. I did my best to keep my head down and slip past the townspeople without anyone recognizing me, but it was hard not to smile at every face I saw.

I held my breath as I ducked through the entrance to the forge. I froze there, silhouetted in the doorway, as two heads swiveled toward me: an older, stern-looking man and the fair face of my prince. I was stunned for a moment as Ivar glared up at me like I had interrupted dark and important thoughts.

“Can I help you, miss?” the man who must be the blacksmith asked. I fingered the edge of my cloak, giddiness crashing into anxiety again. Ivar looked so much more forbidding than I had imagined, glowering over a grinding stone, fingers holding tight to the head and haft of his axe. I stepped forward anyway, lowered my hood.

Ivar’s eyebrows climbed. “Sigrunn,” he breathed. His eyes darted behind me.

“I slipped away,” I explained, “my guard is otherwise occupied. We have maybe an hour.”

Ivar set down the axe he had been sharpening and I stepped quickly to his side. Our hands intertwined as we stared almost stupidly into each other’s faces. It had been so long, this meeting so unexpected, it seemed neither of us even knew what to do next. The hardness behind his eyes began to melt as his gaze traveled slowly over my face.

The blacksmith coughed. “There is a small room in back, Prince Ivar, where no one will disturb you.” He laid his finger aside his nose and motioned behind us. I blushed a little but my heart started to race in anticipation of Ivar getting me alone. This man must be a friend; he seemed to know exactly who I was to the prince. And he wasn’t afraid to facilitate a tryst.

Ivar nodded his thanks to him, then his gaze flicked back to my face. He squeezed my hands. “If the Princess is certain that she wants to be alone with me, after all this time,” he said, addressing the smith but not taking his moody eyes off of me.

“Of course, Ivar,” I said quickly, thrown off by the distance created by his words. “Nothing has changed.” _I still crave you, and I still shouldn’t._

Ivar studied my eyes a moment longer; I smiled nervously and brought his knuckle to my lips. I wanted to ask him the same question. Did I still have a place in his heart? His breath caught when I pursed my lips lightly against the smooth skin on the back of his hand, my kiss sweet and chaste. I was just gathering the courage to ask him when he nodded and turned toward the grey curtain hanging in the doorway at the back of the smithy. The blacksmith stood up and pulled the partition aside, beckoning me politely to enter first.

Ivar pushed at my hand, urging me to precede him as well. I stepped into a room that was dim and crowded with stored supplies. There was space enough for several people to stand comfortably, and a single wooden chair. Ivar pulled himself onto that seat and then opened his arms to beckon me, a flurry of emotions I could not read spinning behind his eyes. I caught the blacksmith wink at Ivar as he let the curtain drop back across the doorway without a word.

I went to him and Ivar wrapped both arms around my waist, pulling my thighs flush against his trunk and the side of his hip. He rolled his face into my belly and let out a desperate little groan. He slid one hand up my back, tugging me closer yet.

It had been months since we had touched. I closed my eyes and tried to memorize the feel of him clutching at me, anchoring me into him as he was right now. I looked down and my fingers were burying themselves in his hair. He rubbed his cheek up through the space between my breasts and turned his brilliant eyes to me again. “I was so angry when you wouldn’t come to me,” he said, resting his head against my chest. He didn’t look particularly angry now, though I saw a little muscle work in his jaw and his grip tightened in the flesh of my hips.

“Lagertha threatened to have you whipped, and then banish you, if she caught us together again,” I said.

Ivar made a dismissive frown. “She would have to kill me and all my brothers before they accepted such a sentence.”

“Exactly,” I said. “I refuse to be the cause of that.”

He gave me a long look, the smoldering behind his eyes starting to flare at whatever deep thoughts were brewing there. “I thought you had turned your back on me.” _I should have, and I could not._ “I had lost hope for another moment like this one. Was I not good to you, when last we met? Did I not fix it? I thought I treated you well.” His eyes narrowed as he stared up at me. “Why have you decided to come now?” His fingers were still playing along my body, but their rhythm slowed as he waited for my answer.  

I had seen this mood before, when we were children. This was the one where he was doubting my loyalty. It was particularly dangerous and I rushed to explain myself. “It has only been so long because Lagertha watches me so closely now. This was the first time I could find a good opportunity.” When his face barely changed, I kept babbling. “I convinced my guard Ingrid I would return to the hall on my own today, so that she could spend time with her new lover. He is part of one of the new armies. When she realizes how I’ve tricked her, she will curse but she will cover for us. She would be just as damned as I would, if she told our secret, and she is not loyal enough to be willing to suffer punishment just so that Lagertha knows everything that I am doing.”

Ivar sat back, arms still looped around my waist. Considering my words. I thought perhaps I saw a flash of pride at my cleverness. “You have been studying your captors, finding ways to get what you want,” he said, calculations beginning behind his eyes. “Is she a weakness we can exploit again?”

Relief flooded through me as it seemed Ivar was listening, that my explanation might be draining away his angry fears. “I am not sure, but I think not. She is going to be furious when I go back to her. She won’t put herself in this position again.”

He heaved a sigh. “Pity.” He cocked his head suddenly, another thought occurring to him. “If her lover is part of one of the new armies, he is ultimately loyal to me. We may have something there. Do you know his name?”

“Hakon? He stays in one of the camps to the east.”

Ivar nodded. “I will find this Hakon. We might be able to convince him to pressure her to help.” A pleased little grin settled over his face; I could have sobbed as the tension drained from the room. “But for now, I have you.” He closed his eyes, squeezed me tighter and took a deep breath of my scent. “We will just have to make the most of this moment that we have.” He pulled back, looked down his side. “The chair seems sturdy enough for two.” His eyes flashed with mischief. “Come down here, pet, won’t you sit across my lap?”

Something about the way he said those words echoed the first time he had seduced me. Perhaps because he had been worried I would reject him then, too. I smiled and settled myself sidesaddle over his legs. “This does not hurt you?” I had to ask, worried about putting all my weight on his bones.

Ivar scowled a moment and shook his head. “I am not so fragile as that,” he said, scooping my face up between his hands. “Now. You have a lot of time to make up for, Sigrunn.” He tapped me on the nose. “You have left me lonely and uncared for, wicked girl. And for a very long time.” He looked up at me in exaggerated sadness and made that perfect bottom lip of his quiver just a little.

I wanted to ask him if he meant that he had not used the slave girl in the meantime, but the words wouldn’t come. I did not truly want to know, and I didn’t want to watch him lie to me. “I have been lonely, too, Ivar,” I said instead, shoving the bitterness down. All that mattered is that I was the one in his arms now.

A softness touched his eyes, which he covered over quickly with more of that haughty air. “Oh? This time my pet is willing to admit it, that she has missed me?”

Another echo of our first night together. How far we had come from that time when I still thought that I could resist him. “Every day,” I said. Then I bit my lip and looked up at him through my eyelashes. “Every night.”

Ivar smiled a deep, masculine smile. I could never seem to resist telling him exactly what he wanted to hear. It made me feel like I was at least treading water, and not drowning under the intensity of his moods.

I traced my fingers over his hands, which were still holding both sides of my face. “I ached for you,” I whispered. Ivar groaned and pulled me in to meet his open mouth.

We fell upon each other with the sad eagerness of those who have too many emotions and too little hope. All that we knew for certain was that we had each other’s lusts and this momentary island of privacy. Ivar’s grip was tight, his hands demanding as they traveled over my body and left fire in their wake. My own fingers were stroking his cheeks, curling under his jaw, tracing the smooth line of his brow. He had a scar on his cheekbone that was not there before. We were missing so much time.

I moaned into his mouth when Ivar started kneading my breasts, pinching fingers finding my nipple. I struggled to remain quiet, then we heard hammer striking anvil from the main room and I worried less. I began to relax and let my passion come. Whatever I wanted from Ivar, I only had right now to get it.

I rolled the side of my body into him as Ivar’s wandering hands tried to gain access between my legs. I tore my lips from his just long enough to rise and change position, the sudden need to be open to him so great that I found I was trembling. I straddled him in the chair with my skirts rolled up to my belly. I wanted Ivar to be free to do anything he liked with me. His mouth came crashing back to mine as I pressed myself flush against him, his hands eager to take advantage of the spread of my thighs.

He ran his palms up over my bared legs and around the curve of my ass. His fingers dug into that soft flesh as he spread me and pressed me against him at the same time. I was already desperate to feel him inside me again. I struggled to work my hands between our bodies, intent on loosening the ties of his pants and freeing his cock.

Ivar’s breath was ragged as he allowed our bodies to separate far enough for the task. “Yes. That’s right, Sigrunn. Right there, that is what you have been neglecting.” His voice was growing cold, sounding almost angry again. Were we playing another game? One of his hands clamped down on the back of my neck. “Time to make it up to me.”

I could feel the outline of him as I worked at the leather cord; paused a moment just to rub the heel of my hand over his hardness. There was a tingling that felt almost magical in every part of my skin that touched his member, even through the rough fabric of his pants. Ivar was making throaty growls as he pushed my head idly from side to side, just to remind us who was in control. He twisted my face up, leaned in and spoke directly into my ear. “Take the binder off my legs.” He indicated with a shove toward the ground that I was to get off him and kneel while I did so.

I got down on my knees before him and looked up, feeling a shift in his mood and desperate to understand.

Ivar’s eyes blazed down on me, and I felt like I was staring directly into that boiling pit of frustrated passions that was always lurking at the edges of everything that he did. I understood then that Ivar’s heart was consumed by fires as hot as Muspelheim’s. And that there might never be anything in this world that was enough to quench them. When he was calm, and when he was kind, he we only hiding this, covering it over for a while, to get what he wanted. To make people do what he wanted.

I leaned into it.

Settling on my knees, arching my back and extending my open throat to him, I looked upon the fires raging in Ivar’s eyes and offered myself up to him. In the sagas, the cool mists of Niflheim stood opposite the land of fire, and neither one could overtake the other, not truly. And in the place where those fires met the ice, life was born. I traced my cool fingers over the straps of his leg binder, loosening them with as much grace as I could manage.

Maybe it wasn’t wrong that I did not fight Ivar’s will with my own, that I did not push back against him as hard as he pushed me. Perhaps my strength was of a different kind. What was it that Aslaug had once said to me? I could not recall her words but some cool sense of rightness, of pride, spread over me as I submitted, slid the binder off Ivar’s legs and crawled between them. I could be like the ice and mist, the cool water that would always withstand his flames.

I ran my face up the inside of Ivar’s thigh like I was a cat. He growled an approving noise in his throat. “Yes, pet, that’s it,” he said stroking my hair with one hand and pulling at his clothes with the other. He stripped his bracers and tunic off and then leaned back in the chair, resting his hands on his taught stomach. “I need you to show me how much you missed me, Sigrunn.”

I shivered a little at the look in his eyes, so strong and so lost all at once. He did need it. He needed more than just one girl’s tenderness and affection, but I was about to put my entire being into doing what I could for him in this moment.

I stroked up his thighs, fingers wrapping the limbs in an echo of the way that I massaged in his salve. Now my touch was charged with a different kind of magic. The bulge in his pants looked impossibly large from this angle, just inches from my nose as I sat on my heels before him. I savored my longing and the delicious ache between my legs for one second longer. Then I rubbed the heel of my hand over his crotch and smiled at the way I made his stomach ripple as he squirmed in pleasure.

I sculpted my fingers around his outline only a few times before Ivar started pushing the top of his pants down. “Take it out, Sigrunn,” he said urgently. “I want you to tend me with your hands… and your mouth.”

My stomach jumped a bit at that, but Ivar had done such a thing for me last time, it was only fair. The thought of his thick head in my mouth did set my insides melting. I loosened the laces at his fly one last time and then spread the fabric. Ivar grasped the edges of the chair and lifted his hips up, allowing me to pull his breeches down off his arse and give us all the room we needed. His cock spilled from his pants and I caught it eagerly between my palms. It was still flexible, but already thick and so very warm. Ivar kept his hands wrapped around the edges of the chair, and his knuckles were white with the force of his grip as he responded to my touch.

I looked him in the eyes as I took him firmly in one hand and stroked up and down his shaft, pulling his foreskin with so that I did not chafe him. Ivar’s face grew heated as I worked him. He was trying to maintain that haughty and in-control expression, but I could see him coming apart at the edges. He held his chin high as he rolled his jaw in enjoyment. “I love seeing you like this, pet, on your knees before me.” His cock was growing in my hands as he contemplated my subservient state. “You may be the daughter of a great king, but look at you now, at my service.” He rocked his hips into my hands, urging me on. “Open your mouth.”

I felt another thrill as I parted my lips for him, refusing to turn my eyes from his as he put his hand to the back of my head and started guiding me closer to his straining length, standing on its own now inside the circle of my stroking fingers. “That’s it, good girl,” he murmured to me as I let him pull my head down over his lap. He groaned when I licked my lips, finally tearing my eyes from his and looking down at my impending fate. Ivar hissed when I brought my mouth over the head of his cock and pursed my lips in a teasing stroke over the very tip of that smooth skin, in something between a kiss and a suck. “Yesss…” he whispered, a note of amazement in his voice now.

His pleasure encouraged me, and I touched my tongue to him, licked softly around his tip. Ivar moaned and thrust himself toward me. “More, Sigrunn. Suck it.”

I did feel a little humiliated, the way he was talking to me. His voice was thick with pleasure but it held the same tone one used when talking to the slaves. It set off a strange feeling that wormed through my gut and made my own pleasure turn icy and overwhelming. It made me want to grovel and beg him to fuck me. I relaxed my jaw and let Ivar slide in over my tongue, careful to keep my teeth from scraping him. His big hand was splayed around the back of my head and he kept pulling me over his length. When he was pressed uncomfortably against the roof of my mouth I squeezed the back of my throat shut on instinct. I closed my lips around him and sucked down hard, eager to comply with his command and hoping to distract him from wanting to push in any farther.

Ivar’s entire body spasmed. He whispered my name like it was a curse word and stopped pushing. I released my pressure, worried it was too much, but he groaned and said “keep going” and caressed the back of my head as I closed down again with a gentler suction. I varied the pressure to make him slide in and out across my lips, mimicking the way that I liked him to make love to me. His soft noises spurred me on, giving me confidence as I played with ways to pleasure him.

His fingers scrambled through my hair. I could feel his desire to push me down warring with the caution that comes with the knowledge that his most delicate body part was now in between my teeth. I tightened my grip on his shaft and tried to give him more stimulation that way. There was no way I could fit his entire length into my mouth.

Just as my jaw was starting to ache Ivar’s hands slid down to my cheeks, tugging me gently to release him. His face was slack with need, eyes burning into mine as he started pulling me up. “I want to take you now, Sigrunn. I need to possess you in every way. Come up here and remind me that you are still mine.”

A strange sob fell from my lips as I clambered up into his lap, fumbling to keep my skirts out of the way. Ivar’s hands were snaking under the fabric as soon as I settled down straddling his lap again. I sighed as I felt my bare skin against his, but I was careful to press myself against his thighs, too low for him to enter me yet. I wanted him but my own body still needed time to prepare. Ivar slid his hands over himself, and then me, seeming frustrated at my hesitation.  I started to caress his broad shoulders, but Ivar caught one of my hands and pulled it down under my skirt. “Make yourself ready for me,” he urged, then nipped at my ear and clutched almost cruelly at my ass, spreading all the sensitive flesh in between those cheeks.

My fingers reached my clit and I sighed at the feeling, all the desire that had been building inside me finally finding a focus. Ivar nipped at my lips, then smiled as he watched me finding my own pleasure. He rubbed his hand over his mouth, gathering spit in his palm. He spread it over himself slowly, smirking at me as he did, eyes saying _just think about what you’re about to get._ He repeated the gesture to wet his fingers, then reached down and drew them slowly along my slit. He started teasing my entrance, fingertips sliding in shallow twists, spreading the edge of my opening.

I didn’t want to wait any longer. I lifted my hips to line myself up over him. “Please, Ivar.”

His hands clamped down to hold me still, stopping me with head just starting to settle in between my lower lips. “Look at me.”

I lifted my eyes to his, found them as crazed as they were during our stolen moment in his cabin, as intent as they had flashed on the cliffside when his knife had first parted my skin. “Tell me you love me,” he demanded.

It would be a lie. I knew that in an instant, just as quickly as I knew I was going to say it anyway. I didn’t want any of this to end. “I love you, Ivar.” I was just as curious to hear the sound of my voice saying those words.

He moaned, face cracking, and pushed up into me, his hands moving to press me further down his length. I took him in easily for once, my body starting to recognize his.

The ecstasy as our hips began to dance together suffused every inch of me. I was flushed and hot and wished that I had taken off my dress, but I couldn’t even think of slowing down to bother with that now. It felt like Ivar was as thick as a tree and would push himself out of my throat at any moment now; my body was reduced to nothing but a vessel for his pleasure and it was all that I ever wanted to be.

As I rode him I realized I was chanting his name with every buck of my hips. I looked down to see his eyes were screwed shut, his face flushing as he braced his hands against the chair again to thrust up into me harder. He looked so close to release when a sudden realization hit me like a bucket of cold water. “Ivar, stop,” I cried without thinking.

He froze, brilliant eyes flying open to look up at me in concern.

“You cannot get me with child,” I babbled, “they will know and they will banish you.”

Ivar’s face darkened and he gritted his teeth. He thrust into me again, slowly and deliberately; it felt so good but my eyes pleaded with him until he relented.

“Get back on your knees and finish me with your mouth, then,” he commanded. So coldly. I peeled myself off of him and settled back down at his feet.

His hands cradled my face as I took him back between my lips. “That’s a good girl,” he said. “You had better suck it hard and deep, wench, after denying me your cunt.” He sounded truly angry. “It is going to take a lot now, to convince me that you are really mine.” He had actually gone a little soft. I felt tears leaking from my eyes as my own frustration overwhelmed me for a moment too. I whimpered as I sucked him as well as I could.

Ivar’s hands were creeping into my hair again. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that I feared mussed hair would give us away just as surely, and more immediately. If I disappointed him again he would probably strike me.

A tense knot of unpleasant emotions was creeping up my throat, making it harder for me to breath than it already was. I was taking Ivar as far into my mouth as I could force myself to. His fingers were tense and his grunting was still sounding more angry than pleasured, though he was rock hard again. Anxiety crowded up into the back of my face and I felt like I would choke. I released his cock with a sob and turned tear-filled eyes up to him. “Ivar, I’m sorry.”

His face had been smoldering and taught; as he took in my words and the wetness around my eyes it softened. His hands came to my cheeks, thumb wiping away a tear that had started to descend as he leaned closer to me. “Shhhhh,” he soothed. “You are doing so very well.” His eyes roamed over my face, softening and starting to glow with renewed pleasure. “Hush, do not worry, pet, I am already forgiving you.” He smoothed my hair. “You are doing everything I need.” I realized he was enjoying seeing me this upset; it was only arousing him more. “Is this difficult for you to do, to take my cock so deeply like this?”

I nodded silently, sniffling and pouting my lips.

Ivar shifted his hips, rubbing himself against the grip I still held around his shaft. “I see how badly you wish to please me. I do not want you to be sad, but I must confess I do enjoy seeing you like this.” His fingertips brushed through the tears pooled under my other eye. “Weeping with worry and desire for me.” His hand wrapped over mine to point his cock at my lips again. “You are almost done,” he continued, voice still soothing, coaxing now. “You can take it a little bit longer. Then I will forgive you for keeping yourself from me. Just be a good girl and suck it down as far as you can for me. It feels incredible.”

Ivar’s hand was wrapped around my head again, slowly but insistently pressing me back down toward his straining erection. I couldn’t remember what else I might have wanted to say; Ivar had made even my fears and insecurities into part of the game and strangely, I did feel soothed, in a hypnotic and fuzzy sort of way. I took him back into my mouth almost eagerly, ready to throw myself into this version of Sigrunn that wanted nothing but to pleasure Ivar and know that she had made him happy.

His hands were crueler now and I didn’t care. He kept pushing his hips toward me, stopping my head from retreating with the iron of his grip on my neck. He bumped against the back of my throat and it hurt, but my protesting whimpers did not slow him. “It is alright if you need to cry again,” the madman said to me. “I don’t mind hearing how hard this is for you, how much you are willing to suffer for me.” His voice carried that tightness that told me he was close to his release now. I could make it. His thick head was so deep in me I wanted to gag. I squealed in warning but he did not release me; I clamped my throat shut against his onslaught and prayed that he would come soon.

I gasped one more breath around him, then renewed my efforts to suck him down while keeping my gag reflex under control. I was rewarded with the odd sensation of Ivar’s cock writhing inside my mouth, pumping his seed into the back of my throat. A rush of pride overtook everything else I had been feeling as his hands spasmed and he let out a deep groan.

I held still until he seemed to be finished. His body shook again when I pulled back and released him from my mouth. His seed was thick and bitter and I leaned over to spit it on the dusty floor, under a shelf where I thought no one would notice.

When I looked back up, Ivar’s eyes were closed, face slack as he caught his breath. My shoulder bumped his knee and he reached out without opening his eyes, caressing my cheek and pulling me in to rest my head against his thigh. He stroked me idly as he came back to himself. I wondered if we were done. I thought we still had time. I couldn’t think of the words to ask him not to leave me with the ache still throbbing between my own legs. I could only rub my face mutely against his thigh.

I watch Ivar absently stuff himself back into his pants. I tried to suppress my disappointment as I helped him pull the fabric back up over his hips. Then he finally spoke, voice a low melodious murmur. “Do not worry, pet, I haven’t forgotten you. Climb back into my lap and get your reward.”

I hiked up my skirts and threw my leg over him again. One of his hands was running down my thigh before I even settled into place. The other cupped my cheek, pulling me in to look at him. “You have pleased me, Sigrunn,” Ivar said with a wide, earnest look on his face. Like it was the greatest compliment in the world. The fire behind his eyes was banked low now, just a few gleaming embers left of the inferno.

Ivar kissed my cheek, then his lips traveled down my neck as his other hand found my sex. I sighed in relief as his fingers started working my clit, so swollen with need already. I held onto his bare shoulders, steadying myself as the waves of pleasure long overdue began to overtake me. “My little princess. All mine.” He held the side of my head with his thumb resting just under my jaw, slight pressure there forcing my chin up so that he had full access to my throat. He nuzzled and sucked at me as he continued to speak. “You are going to remember that you are mine, yes? That only I can do this to you.” The fingers under my skirt increased their pace, drawing tiny, delicious circles over my pleasure center as I pressed myself wantonly into his hand.

“Yes, Ivar,” I whispered to the sky. The tension between my legs was growing unbearable very quickly now, after all of the heat we had shared in this tiny room. “Oh, don’t stop.”

He nipped at my neck and applied himself with renewed vigor. I was lost in the contrast between the furious action below my skirt and the tender caresses and kisses he was giving me above it. I was trying to be quiet and the tension turned my moans into mewling little whimpers as my climax approached. “That’s it pet. You are such a good girl. Now I want to see you break.” The surge overwhelmed me a moment after his command. I buried my face in Ivar’s shoulder as I came, clutching at the smooth skin of his back. His fingers were relentless, milking every last moment out of me. I think he liked to hear me sob in his ear as the pleasure grew too sharp, the tender flesh growing sensitive after my release faded away. He probably enjoyed the way my hands scrambled to stop him after that, too.

I rested my head on his shoulder as we both caught our breaths. For some reason I felt hesitant to meet his eye again, tried to hide with my face curled into his neck for as long as I could. I tried to memorize his scent. I did not know how long it would be before I could touch him like this again.

“I did not hurt you, did I?” Ivar asked softly, lips brushing the side of my head.

“No, Ivar,” I said automatically. Part of the experience was unpleasant, but I did not want to upset him. He planted a kiss on my hair and we spoke no more of it.

After another moment he broke the silence again. “It won’t be long, now,” he sighed. He settled his arms into a possessive grip around me.

I picked my head up then. “You have plans? For Lagertha?”

Ivar looked at me coolly, like he was still deciding how much I could be trusted. “The balance of power is shifting. All these arriving warriors, they have answered the call of the sons of Ragnar, _not_ of the so-called Queen at Kattegat.”

“They make her nervous,” I informed him. “She attempts to speak of nothing important in front of me, but some things are plain in her face.”

Ivar cocked his head, looking like he was seeing me in a whole new light. “You are with her every day.”

“She keeps me very close.”

“Tell me, when do you think she is vulnerable?”

I thought about it for a while. “Lagertha is a great warrior, who surrounds herself with great warriors. Beyond that, she is also paranoid. She knows that you may come for her at any time, so she and her companions keep a very close watch. They know to be ready for the unexpected.” I ran my fingertips over Ivar’s cheek, the outline of his lips, as I thought about it. “If you could find a time when she, and Astrid and Torvi, are distracted. When they could not keep careful watch on the room. That might be something. Her soldiers rely too much on them for instructions, and guidance.”

Ivar broke into a smile, like he was fantasizing about his victory already. “That could be something,” he agreed, lacing his fingers through mine as he played with my hand while he thought. “How does she arrange her guards, around the hall? My brothers and I, we are rarely allowed close enough now to determine that.”

I tried to summon an image from my memory. “…I am not sure,” I confessed. “I know only that someone is always watching me. Even when I step out to make water in the middle of the night.” I thought some more, smoothing his hair under my fingertips. “And Lagertha always keeps at least two warriors near her.”

Ivar put a hand under my chin, pulling my eyes seriously to his. “Pay a little more attention for me. Count how many she stations outside the building, and how many within the hall. Can you do that for me?”

A subservient little smile spread across my face. “Of course, my Prince,” I said. “I have longed for your vengeance too. And for you to come for me. I will help in any way that I can.”

“Good girl. Do you remember the great pine growing behind the hall, the one all the children used to climb?”

I nodded.

“When you have your count, carve some notches into the bark on the eastern side. One set for the number of guards outside, and below it a set for how many within. We will send someone to read it.”

I brought his fingers to my lips. “I will do this for you, Ivar. Will you strike soon?”

“We will know when the opportunity is right,” Ivar said enigmatically. He pulled me in close to him and whispered his next words against my temple. “It will not be long before I possess you.”

 

My legs felt weak and trembly as I slipped out of the blacksmith’s shop. I told myself it was only because of how much time I had spent straddling Ivar’s lap, how long I was on my knees, and how hard he had made me come after that. In truth something deep in me was shaken by the Ivar that I had met today, but I didn’t want to admit it. I didn’t want to think about how he had just proven to me that he missed the point of why I had run away from him that night in the great hall. Though he hadn’t caused me any real pain this time, he had again taken his anger out on me sexually. He had not only ignored, but enjoyed my very real suffering. It should have bothered me, but I didn’t want it to. Foolish girl that I was, I thought of the space between Muspelheim and Niflheim and praised myself for the way I had been able to soothe him with my love, with my submission. I didn't want to listen to the warning voice inside me, not when I suddenly felt so close to getting the other things that I wanted. Ivar was going to attack the hall. He wanted me to help.

I found the shieldmaiden Ingrid close to where I had left her. Her face looked about as flushed and satisfied as mine, and she was drinking ale with Hakon and his friends. She paled when she saw me approach. “Princess, I thought you went back up to the great hall?”

My smile was sharp and condescending. “Why would I do that? They would know immediately that something was amiss if I returned without you. You would have been punished for sure.” I thanked the Gods the girl was stupid enough to not have realized that earlier. “We’ll go back together, now. I am sure that you will think of a good excuse for why we are so late.”

 

*****

 

My lips curled into a snarl as wide as Ivar’s when Bjorn burst into the great hall, flanked by my father and uncle. We had been so close to vengeance. So close to having no one’s authority in the way of Ivar doing as he pleased with me. Lagertha threw down her sword and the eldest son of Ragnar put an end to the conflict with only a few words.

When Ubbe and Ivar stalked outside in angry defeat, my heart trailed out after them. I even thought I might slip away in the confusion, but Harald Finehair spotted me before I could take more than a few steps toward the door.

“Daughter!” he cried jovially, spreading his arms wide in expectation that I would run to him like the little girl I once was. The way I always had each time he returned from another battle, another fief or kingdom he had conquered.

I was disappointed and angry, but it was not his fault. When I looked upon his cheeks crinkled in mirth, I could not stop an answering smile from spreading across my face. I did not run to him, I was too old for that. But there may have been a bounce in my step as I crossed the hall and threw myself into his arms.

I did miss my father’s solid embrace. My time at Kattegat had been anxious, confusing, and entirely exhausting. My arms clutched around his waist as some deep, childlike part of me finally relaxed. I had been walking a dangerous path, but Daddy was home now. He would know what to do. “Father,” I sighed into his shoulder. “Did the voyage go well? Did you bring back something exotic for me? I am sure you have many tales.”

My father stepped back when I finally released him, one hand remaining on my shoulder as he laughed at my string of questions. Uncle Halfdan was crowding in before he could answer, gathering me up into a hug that lifted me off my feet. He set me down and held me out at arm’s length. “Little Sigrunn, how have you managed to become even more beautiful than you were when we left you here?”

I giggled and bent my head, gave him a modest smile at the compliment. “It’s only that I’ve thought of some new things to do with my hair.” I grabbed his beard and tugged at it. “It looks like you’ve managed to grow some new gray hairs since I’ve seen you,” I teased.

Halfdan snatched my hand away from him in mock outrage. “Well, I had picked up something special for my favorite niece, but now I’m not so sure that it’s for you anymore…”

My eyes lit up. Uncle Halfdan always brought me back something particularly lovely when he went raiding. “I am sorry Uncle. Here, let’s sit down. You must be tired from your journey. Where is the girl with the ale?”

We found somewhere to settle in and I started to feel more centered again. “And how has our little princess fared here without us?” my father asked over his mug. “Lagertha has treated you well?”

I hid my face behind my own drink, schooling my features as I decided not to get into the entire story right here. “Her hospitality has been impeccable,” I said coolly. “Although…” I trailed off, looking down at my open palm. “She made me _work._ In the _dirt,_ ” I pouted, extending my hand toward Father. “Look at these calluses.”

Father’s chuckle was indulgent as he rubbed his thumb over my palm. “It’s not the life of a princess, but hard work gives you character. We passed great earthworks and walls as we entered the town. You were helping to build those?”

“Yes, she required everyone to assist in the construction. Regardless of station or situation.” I looked toward the door. “Everyone but the sons of Ragnar.”

“She did not want to keep them that close, eh?” Halfdan said. “Understandable. Bjorn couldn’t have arrived at a better moment for her.”

“Indeed,” was all I let myself say. I sucked down another sip of ale as I felt father’s calculating eyes upon me.

“The power has shifted dramatically here since we left,” King Harald said to me, “I expect a thorough report from you, daughter. I trust you have been paying attention to all of the important players in your time here?”

When Father had left me here, he urged me to learn as much as I could about the way things worked in the house of Ragnar. He had no idea how deeply I had gotten myself involved. “Of course, Father,” I replied, inclining my head. “Where would you like me to start?”

He suppressed a yawn against his fist, exchanged glances with his brother. “You can tell me tomorrow. You are right, we are weary from our travels. I am sure the tales you have to tell about Kattegat are even more interesting than ours. The men are setting our camp now; I had better head down there and make sure they are doing it properly. I imagine we will be here at least a week to mend the boats and resupply before the army heads out for Northumbria.” He pushed back his chair and we all rose. “You are no longer a hostage, but I think you would still prefer to sleep here, with the women. It will be much less comfortable in our camp.”

I nodded. Truly, I longed to get out from under Lagertha’s thumb, but a third idea caught me before I started to express that. “Yes, Father, I believe I will.”

They both kissed me on the forehead and promised to make time for me tomorrow, then Father and Uncle were draining their mugs and striding purposefully out the door of the hall again. I was surprised at how my stomach dropped to see their backs again so soon, but a new hope had seized me, a sudden plan that thrilled me from my toes to my scalp.

My eyes fell on the slave Eyja, passing around a rapidly-draining pitcher of ale. I summoned her to my side with quick movements of my hand.

“Yes, Princess?” she asked.

“Put that down and come with me. I need help with my things.”

She looked a little confused, but set the empty pitcher on the table and followed me as I strode toward the sleeping quarters behind the main hall.

Astrid noticed my path and intercepted me at the back of the room. “Princess,” she started with wide eyes and a fake smile.

It felt wonderful not to have to feign any patience for her. “I am no longer your prisoner,” I cut her off, “and I find I cannot stand to stay here another minute. I am borrowing this slave to carry my trunk; I am going to join my father at his camp.”

Astrid gave me another one of her long, ‘I wish we could be friends’ looks but I was entirely finished with this. I swept past her, pulling Eyja along with me. I heard her say a curt “as you wish” to my back and I made sure that she could not see how I was grinning. A few seconds of freedom already felt exhilarating.

Eyja helped me pack up my belongings silently. I would not miss this room. We put them all back into the same box in which they had come with me, the trunk that had been my seat on my father’s longship as he came to add his strength to Bjorn’s expedition. The slave seemed to handle it without too much struggle as we made our way out of the hall and down through the town.

She stopped behind me when I turned toward the hills.

“Princess?” she asked meekly.

I spun back toward her on my heel, one eyebrow raised.

“I believe your father’s camp is going up back that way,” she said, motioning with her head.

“It is,” I said curtly. “But that is only where I wanted Astrid to think that I am going.”

My heart raced as I picked my way down the thin path, the darkening sky forcing us to go more slowly, be more careful with our footing. It had not seen much use until recently, and traffic had not yet worn it smooth and wide. I tried to let the still sounds of the woods calm me, but the task was impossible, adrenaline flaring at each new thought. I had lied to Father. I was free of Lagertha and Astrid. Ivar’s plan was foiled, but we would be together anyway. Only if for the night.

I smiled when I spotted the warm little lights in the darkness ahead. They shone from the windows of the Ragnarssons’ cabin.


	6. a stolen night

The low hum of angry voices spilled out of the cabin into the night air. I knew Ivar must be raging, after Bjorn had stepped in and snatched away his vengeance. I could only hope that the surprise of my presence could soothe that burn; otherwise I might regret coming here. I was dreaming of the Ivar I met that night we snuck out to Frigg’s grove, not the distracted and rageful boy that made me fear him before he would love me.

As I stepped up to the doorway I heard Ubbe attempting to calm his brother. I decided not to bother with knocking; my own sense of triumph carried me into uncharacteristic boldness. It felt good. Tonight I had made myself free, and would do exactly as _I_ pleased.

I pushed through the door with a wide smile. The cabin had changed a little since my last visit; it was better furnished, and large fabrics hung from the rafters to divide the space for more privacy. I had almost forgotten Margrethe lived here too now. A woman’s touch was evident, and everything was certainly much cleaner.

Ivar was on a chair near the hearth, glaring at the flames with his back to me. Ubbe and Margrethe were seated at the table, twin expressions of concern on their faces as they looked at the youngest Ragnarsson. Ubbe was trying to hide his anxiety with the kind of soothing face one assumes when approaching a wild animal. He and Margrethe both whipped their heads toward the door when I entered. Ubbe snatched up his sword and pointed it at me on reflex.

I threw up my hands, Ivar spun around and hefted an axe as well. Of course; they had to be fearing Lagertha’s soldiers might come up tonight and seize them for their attempted coup. Surprise melted their fierce expressions a moment later. “Sigrunn” Ivar cried just as Ubbe said “Princess” and they both laid their weapons back down. “What are you doing here?” Ubbe continued. Ivar just watched me with glittering eyes.

I beckoned in a curt gesture, and Eyja entered with my trunk. “Father thinks I am still going to stay in the women’s quarters in the great hall. I spit in Astrid’s face and told her I couldn’t spend another hour in her presence. I told her that I was going to my father’s camp tonight.”

A crafty smile spread across Ivar’s face as he understood what I had done. “When in truth, you have come to me.”

“Yes, Ivar.” I stepped to him, crouched down at his side so our faces could be close as he took my hands in his.

“You lied to your father, and everyone, so that you could be with me.” I could see how my deviousness had pleased him.

“Yes, Ivar. No one expects to see me anywhere tonight. No one knows that I am here, except her.” I nodded to Eyja. “And we have trusted her before.”

Ivar’s face hardened as he contemplated the slave, probably readying himself to intimidate her.

Ubbe spoke before he could start. “You will keep their secret, yes?” He rose quickly from the tabe and stepped over to the slave. He flashed us an anxious look before turning back to the girl. “You really have no reason to tell anyone. You have no loyalty to her father, and she is no longer Lagertha’s hostage. No one needs to know.”

Eyja bowed her head.“I served your mother and the house of Ragnar for my entire life,” she said quietly. “I feel no need to tell Lagertha anything about what this princess commanded me.” I didn’t miss the way she suppressed a shudder as her eyes flashed to Ivar.

Ubbe thanked the slave warmly with a pat on her shoulder. I squeezed Ivar’s hand, hoping he would just continue to remain silent. I thought Ubbe’s method much more likely to keep Eyja quiet than any threat his younger brother’s mind might be devising.

Then I walked to Eyja’s side as well, and took her hand in mine. “I realize the position I have put you in.” It felt strange to address a slave so personally, but I recognized what Ubbe was doing. “Thank you,” I said, looking sincerely into her eyes. “I will not keep you any longer. Retrace our steps, so that it looks like you have returned from the direction of my father’s camp?”

Eyja inclined her head. “Of course, Princess.” I squeezed her hand in gratitude and then let her go. She spared one glance for Margrethe and then ducked out the door.

“If you are done coddling the servants?” Ivar asked pointedly, reaching out his hand so I would return to his side. I saw Margrethe stiffen at his tone. From what I understood she was free now, but I couldn’t imagine that Ivar was giving her much respect even as she shared his brother’s bed.

A thrill ran through me as I looked back at Ivar’s face, already filling up with need. Realizing a whole night stretched out before us now with no barriers, no interruptions, and nothing to pull us apart. I wanted to climb into his lap right there, but I felt uncomfortable with Ubbe and Margrethe staring at us. I pulled a chair close to Ivar’s side instead. I settled in with our legs flush together as our arms wove around each others’ bodies. Our eyes met and I did my best to read his mood. Still bogged down in the blackness of recent events but softening, slowly realizing he had something much better to think about tonight.

Ubbe coughed. “Is this wise, Princess?”

Ivar whipped his head around, staring daggers at his brother.

“No one will know. I will go visit with my father in the morning. He won’t question anything.”

Ubbe’s face said I hadn’t answered the question he was really asking, but he sat back and changed the subject. “How was the mood in the great hall when you left?”

“Jovial at the surface, but tension is still running deep. Lagertha is making a show of controlling the room, but her confidence has been shaken. She knows how close you came.”

Ivar’s hands were starting to wander, tickling at my waist and running through the free locks of my hair. They stiffened when I mentioned his enemy’s name.

Ubbe grunted. “Is Sigurd still there?”

I twisted my lip. “Your man’s blade at his throat made it clear to everyone that he had no part in your plan. It seemed he was still welcome there, though he was keeping close to Hvitserk. When I left, your brother and Bjorn were telling tales of their raid, showing off some of their spoils.”

Ivar was staring at my face, but he did not look like he was paying much attention to my words.

“So their voyage was successful? Good for them,” Ubbe said, looking proud for his brothers. “And you were reunited with your own family. All is well with them?”

“Yes—“ I started to answer, but Ivar cut me off.

“She did not come here for conversation,” he said, glaring at his brother from beneath his brows.

Ubbe’s eyes darted between us, and the nonexistent space between our bodies. His face broke into a broad grin and he shrugged. “No, I do not suppose that she did.” He looked over at his woman. She still had the slave’s habit of making herself small while others spoke. “Margrethe and I will go take a walk. It is a pleasant enough night for it.” He stood and offered his hand to the silent girl.

Margrethe looked at the way Ivar was holding me and gave me the strangest look as she rose. I saw curiosity, confusion, …and pity? It made me draw my chin up haughtily and glare back at her. I had nothing against her, but no former slave was going to make me feel ashamed of my choices.

“Take your time,” Ivar called to them as Margrethe wrapped a shawl around her shoulders and they moved toward the door. “Take the long way around. Maybe twice.” My heart race began to race.

His thumb came to my cheek as the door shut behind them. He contemplated me for a while, too many emotions crossing his face for me to read. “If we had succeeded in killing Lagertha,” he finally spoke, “I would have had you tonight anyway.” His lip curled, not entirely mirthfully. “I had plans for you, how I would enjoy my victory on your body.”

I shivered. “You still can. I am here, I am yours.”

“For one night,” he replied. “And I am not feeling very victorious.”

I placed my hands on his face, bent my head to implore him. “Please, Ivar. Let yourself enjoy this. When have we had a whole night together without worries?”

He thought for a moment, curling his fingers around mine and then bringing them idly up to his lips. “Only the night that you first gave yourself to me.” His eyes began to smolder as he remembered.

“And even then, I had to sneak back to my room before dawn,” I reminded him. “Tonight, no one will miss me. Not even in the morning. We can rest in each others’ arms as long as we like.”

Ivar did not lift his mouth from my knuckles, tickling my skin pleasantly as he responded. “It is not the resting I was looking forward to.”

I giggled a little. “I only meant, we can relax—“

“I know what you meant,” he said, a smile finally starting to crack his somber face. “Alright.” He tipped his head, gave me a wolfish look. “I will allow you to distract me from my frustrations.” Then he looked at me expectantly.

I pouted just a little. I liked when Ivar took control. It was strange to see him just sitting there, waiting for me to be the one to impress him. But I supposed I should enjoy a rare chance to do things with him in the ways that _I_ pleased.

I reached up and ran my fingers through his thick hair. It had grown so long in the time we had been kept apart. I kept my eyes on his as I leaned slowly into his face. I captured his bottom lip between both of mine, pulling on it with only the barest of pressure. Ivar exhaled in a soft moan and I knew I had his attention. Instead of properly kissing him I moved on, payback for all the times that he had kept me guessing. I traced my mouth over his cheekbone, bottom lip catching for a moment on that new scar. I would ask him later how he got it. Nuzzling the tip of my nose into the hairs just in front of his ear, I inhaled the musky scent clinging to them. His distinctive smell hit me in the chest like a pull of strong mead. I never wanted to leave the circle of Ivar’s arms again.

I pulled his head a little closer so that I could run the tip of my tongue around the shell of his ear. Ivar stayed fairly still, his arms loosely around my waist. I started to worry I wasn’t doing a very good job of enticing him, but when I rubbed my cheek against his and pulled back far enough to see his face I was more than reassured. Ivar’s eyes were lightly closed, his visage peaceful. In fact he looked almost vulnerable; like my simple affections, so sweetly given, were touching something deep and wounded inside of him. I kissed both his eyelids, feather soft. His body shook just a little, but his lids remained closed and he kept himself frozen, waiting to receive more of my attention.

I traced my fingers along the edges of his perfect lips, taking advantage of his stillness. He parted them in response. A moment later they pursed ever so lightly around my fingertips, in little kisses that seemed almost grateful. Here was the Ivar that I had longed to see again. I still had no idea how to draw this version of him out, but every time I found him my heart tied itself to his a little tighter.

I kissed my way down the sharp line of his jaw, cupping the other side of his face in my hand as he leaned into it with an almost-imperceptible snuggle. When I reached his chin I pulled his face down and finally brushed my lips over his again. Ivar’s hands tightened on my flanks and he tried to pull me in closer. I hummed against his mouth and coaxed his lips open with my own.

The first slide of my tongue was tentative, licking across the tiny space between his lips. It was still so strange to feel Ivar passive and receptive like this. I couldn’t tell if he was letting that iron will of his go for the night, or just holding back for a while to see what I would do. He allowed my tongue to enter his mouth and caressed it with his own in slow, contemplative sweeps. He met my intensity without pushing back, simply enjoying the pleasures I was offering him.

The longer this went on the more it felt like a trap; Ivar was letting me grow too comfortable. The snare would spring at any moment. Then I felt myself longing to find that catch; I wanted to be Ivar’s willing prey, trussed up and overcome. I pushed against him more firmly, my hips following my mouth as I rocked to the edge of my chair and melded the entire line of my body into his.

Ivar’s hands ran up my back, enveloping me in his arms. He started to kiss me back, finally, but his movements were slow and deep. For once, our passion did not have to be rushed. For once, I was not trying to pull away. I felt that effervescent, buzzing sort of feeling start to run through me again. This was where I belonged, it said.

I kissed him until every fiber of my being was on fire for him, longing for more than the dull pressure of hands over clothes. “Let’s lie down,” I said against his cheekbone.

Ivar’s eyes were dizzying as he stared for a long moment before nodding his agreement. His fingers trailed along my body as he dropped out of his chair. “Come,” he said simply, and began dragging himself toward a makeshift curtain partitioning off a corner of the room. I wondered if I should worry that he was so uncharacteristically quiet. I had everything I wanted tonight but it was so unusual for us; to be relaxed, for me to be so willing. What if Ivar didn’t like it this way? Or perhaps he was just still brooding about his thwarted revenge.

Ivar pulled aside the hanging curtain and I saw there was a messy pile of furs and blankets on the floor there. This must be where Ivar had been sleeping; I could only imagine that when Ubbe had brought his sweetheart home he had kicked his younger brothers out of the big bed. Ivar pulled himself to the side of the makeshift pallet and swung his legs around so he could sit up, eyes rising raptly to my face. “Undress for me, Sigrunn.” It was barely a command, his voice coming out so peaceful and pleased.

I let the curtain fall behind me and began to loosen the ties that held the waist of my dress tight around me. The night had begun as a feast to honor the arriving armies, and so I was wearing one of my finest and most complicated gowns. I had bought it from one of the merchants who had come far from the south. I watched Ivar’s eyes follow the long red fabric I had belted around my waist as I unwound it from my body. The gown itself was a soft color like fresh cream, with delicate buttons holding it closed in a row down my spine.

I swept my hair over one shoulder. “I need help with these,” I asked as I sat down beside him, curling my feet up under me and presenting my back to him.

Ivar traced one finger up the line of buttons, slow enough that his fingertip brushed every little triangle of skin that was exposed between the loops extending off one edge of the garment and wrapping around the little circles of carved bone lining the other. It tickled quite pleasantly, and I sighed through parted lips before he even unfastened the first one. I felt his breath on my skin as he worked silently, his face close to my shoulder.

When he released the final button, his fingers trailed up the center of my back, curled around my neck and cupped my jaw for a moment. I thought he meant to turn me around, but he stopped me with a low noise and began busying himself taking my hair down, pulling out the decorative combs and loosening tiny braids that held the upper sections piled high on my head. I longed to embrace him again but instead I tipped my head back and forced myself to be patient, to enjoy the feeling of him tending to me like this. Tonight we were going to bed together in all senses of the phrase. Let him brush out my hair for me, I told myself, if that is what he wants to do.

When my hair was falling loose in golden waves all around me, Ivar gathered it up in one hand and started laying kisses on the base of my neck. He spread the fabric of my gown wide open, caressing my skin as he pushed it over my shoulders and down both arms.

My nipples hardened and I shivered just a little; the air was cool and I still was not used to being naked with Ivar. I wasn’t used to being with Ivar at all. A fresh rush of nerves mingled pleasantly with the excitement of his hands roaming over my bare skin; sliding down my back, around my waist, coming up to cup both my breasts. The leather of his bracers was rough against my sensitive flesh. I made an apologetic little noise and started working at the buckles on his forearms.

Ivar refused to make the task easy for me, squeezing and pulling at my breasts as I tugged on the little straps to unclasp them. “Hold still,” I giggled and he only growled, nipping playfully at my ear. By the time I got them both off I found myself grinding my ass back against him, my nipples growing sore from the teasing and my cunt aching for him already. Ivar slid his hands down my belly, pulling me in tighter and breathing in deep, his face pressed just behind my ear.

Then he pushed me face down onto his bed. The soft fabric of my dress was still pooled around my waist, but he tugged at it until I lifted my hips and helped him slide it the rest of the way off me. I tried not to feel self-conscious about the way I had to wiggle my ass in his face to do it. When Ivar grabbed both those bare cheeks firmly in his hands, however, I knew I must have looked good doing it. He squeezed enthusiastically and began kissing my lower back.

His touch disappeared for a moment; from the rustle of fabric I could tell he was removing some of his own clothes. I looked over my shoulder just in time to watch his muscles ripple as he pulled his undershirt over his shoulders. Even the dim light back here could not obscure his cut physique. He smiled almost shyly when he saw me looking, then he pushed me back down with a warm hand on my shoulder and settled on the furs alongside me. “Lay down,” he whispered to me, so I rested my chest on the pallet and laid my cheek over my hands. Ivar bent to kiss along my shoulderblade; he held himself propped up on his left arm while he explored my body with his right.

At first his caresses were smooth and loving, but I felt a tension growing in his hand. Ivar wanted something more. A thrill flashed through me as he kneaded the rounded flesh of my ass almost cruelly. I sighed for him. This was something I had missed, something I hadn’t felt since before he left for England. Being laid out helpless below his hands, wondered what strange thing he wanted to do to me this time. His lips nipped at my shoulders, teeth grazing occasionally but stopping short of the kind of bites that he used to give me. I readied myself for some unexpected pain, but it never came.

What was he up to this time? It was growing harder and harder to be patient. I writhed under my lover shamelessly, trying to entice him into doing whatever it was he was going to do. But there was only his warm hand and its maddening, swirling caresses.

Finally I rolled into him, unable to resist the urge to wrap my legs around his body. Ivar pressed his lips to mine and allowed me to pull him over on top of me. He buried his hands in my hair and kissed me with the fervor that was lacking earlier, his mouth finally as hungry as mine. I stroked down the broad muscles of his back, still telling myself to make love to him slowly and still failing to convince myself. I thrust my fingers under the top of his breeches, feeling the swell of his buttocks. Then I slid my hands around his sides, running over the hard edge of his hip bones and dropping into the delicious softness of tender flesh between them.

Ivar lifted his mouth from mine as I pushed one hand further into his pants. My grasping fingers brushed through thick hair and then met their goal; he was mostly soft but I was starting to get used to that possibility. He moaned as I closed my grip around his shaft and rolled him lightly in my hand.

“Sigrunn, I—“ Ivar began, shame in his voice.

“Hush,” I replied quickly. “I will give you what you need.”

There wasn’t room to move very much, with Ivar’s hips resting on mine and his pants still fully fastened. I pushed him playfully back onto his side and released the tie on his breeches.

I stroked him as I had done the first night that we lay together. Ivar hid his face in the crook of my neck, his hands spasming and releasing in odd intervals as he focused on my attempts to bring him pleasure. It was not working the way it had before. I thought perhaps I should try my mouth; he seemed to have enjoyed that greatly. I started to rise and shift positions, but when I saw Ivar’s frustrated face another thought occurred to me. He really was holding himself back.

I stopped pumping but left one hand curled around his cock, brought the other gently to his face so I could draw his eyes to meet mine. “Ivar,” I asked, making my face open and curious, “do you need to hurt me again?”

Ivar’s tormented eyes squeezed shut for a moment, hands gripping hard around my shoulders. “Yes,” he breathed in relief, then his eyes flew open again. “Would you want me to? Truly?”

I was taken aback. After everything he had done to me – the scars he left on my thighs, almost killing me while he took my virginity – he was asking me that question _now?_ “I thought… I thought you knew.” My voice was small, my head starting to spin. “I thought you knew that I liked it. If you didn’t…” If he didn’t even think I was enjoying it, what did he think he was doing to me?

Ivar sounded as confused as I did, his voice quiet as he spoke again. “I did. I thought I did. But you ran from me that night, after… and you didn’t tell me what else was wrong. Only that it hurt.”

Wasn’t there something I had wanted to say about this, months ago? Before Ivar had decided on his own how he was going to apologize, before his grand romantic gesture took away my chance to explain my complicated feelings. I couldn't quite recall what it was that I had needed to say.

“Ubbe said I should be more careful not to hurt a woman,” Ivar continued when I didn’t speak. “He said that must have been why you were angry with me that night.”

I ducked my head to hide a reflexive smile; it was endearing to picture proud Ivar asking his brother for advice about me. “He is right that I need you to be careful, Ivar. But sometimes… some of the ways that you hurt me,” I closed my eyes and shivered. “Some of them I liked very much.” I realized my hand was still wrapped around his flaccid cock when I felt it start to grow at my words.

I opened my eyes to see Ivar’s staring into me, bright and intent. “Tell me.”

I looked away, unable to speak so frankly and meet his gaze at the same time. “I miss your knife,” I whispered.

Ivar groaned and his cock twitched in my hand. I started stroking its growing length as I continued to speak.

“The whole world goes silent when you touch my skin with that blade. It is so hard to be still, and yet I know that I must… the fear is exciting.” Just thinking about it had my voice going soft and strange.

“Do you want me to get my knife now?” Ivar asked, pushing his forehead against mine in his eagerness to recapture my eyes.

I moaned and squeezed his cock in my fist; it was thick and full now. “Yes,” I whispered.

Ivar pressed his lips to mine almost ceremoniously, a moment of gratitude amidst his eagerness. Then he rolled off the bed and started rifling through his things. When he found it I felt something drop away, deep inside me, as I watched him crawl back up with that naked, shining blade clutched in his fist.

A familiar smirk touched his lips as he settled back beside me, the sense of power that holding a weapon gave him equaling the pleasure I got from feeling helpless underneath it. I was now infinitely more aware that I was completely naked before him; he seemed to be thinking about it too as he held the blade hovering only inches above my skin, tracing the curves of my body in the air. I was panting already, struggling to restrain the heaving of my chest when my nipples almost touched the edge of the knife on my next inhale. Where would Ivar’s blade kiss me next?

“Turn over,” he urged, voice low and tight. “I want you just as you were before.”

Dutifully I rolled onto my stomach, assumed the position I remembered I held at that moment when I was so sure he was about to abuse me again.

“I was thinking about this too,” he confessed. “Your skin is so smooth, and unblemished.” I jumped when I felt contact but it was only his hand, warm and impossibly large to my adrenaline-laced senses. He caressed around my shoulder, slid down my spine and over the swell of my ass. “Virgin skin.” His hand disappeared and I was shuddering already, knowing he had to be picking up the knife. I wanted to feel it against me, but my basic instincts of self-preservation could not just be turned off.

“I thought to myself,” Ivar continued, “that this skin needs some character.” Sudden cold against the meat of my ass. He slid the flat of the blade up over my hip as I twitched and writhed, trying my best to control the reflexes that screamed at me to pull away, to stand up and run. “Ahhh,” Ivar exhaled, in a mockery of sympathy, “my pet is having trouble being still.” He rocked the blade onto its point, drew a stinging line that I’m sure he meant to be parallel to my spine but was coming out crooked as I jerked under him. He gave up and set the blade down suddenly on the fur beside my face. “It seems you need me to hold you down.”

He braced his hands on either side of my body and pulled himself up, dragging his hips over mine until his cock was nestled between the cheeks of my ass. As he settled his weight over me he pumped his hips a few times, self-indulgently, nestling his hardness deeper against my soft flesh. I hoped he would bury himself inside me soon, though everything about Ivar’s pace said he was about to take his sweet time with me. I felt his fingertips again, sweeping a few loose locks off my shoulders, gathering my hair up and away from my neck. His hand returned to my field of vision to retrieve his knife.

Ivar pressed a kiss to the nape of my neck, then set the edge of his blade to the very same spot. “Hold still.” I felt the bite of his steel and sucked in my breath. The sensation was so welcome that I couldn’t call it pain right away, though I knew there was a burn soon to follow. He drew a few bright lines across me, probably shallow, though it felt intense enough that I thought there would be blood. When Ivar let out an appreciative groan I grew more certain that he was staring at slashes welling up with red.

He shifted against me, rubbing his cock more urgently. I bucked my hips back against him. “Ivar…” I sighed, “I want you inside me while you do this.”

The noise he made then was indescribable. Again the knife went down on the fur beside my face. “Do not take your eyes off of it,” he commanded. I felt him lift away from me, jumped a moment later when wet fingers abruptly spread me from behind, awkwardly seeking my opening. Making sure to ready his passage. I sighed in pleasure as he worked me for a while, my eyes fluttering closed.

His fingers disappeared and a harsh slap on my buttock popped my eyes open again. “I said,” Ivar smacked me on the other cheek, “do not take your eyes off of that knife.” Then he wet his fingers quickly and plunged them back into me, resuming his pace as if nothing had happened.

I clenched down on him in my need. I thought that I loved this even more than the sweet Ivar from the woods, his rough hands fulfilling me better than the tenderest kiss. Especially since this time we had actually spoken about what we were doing. There were less anxious thoughts swirling in my head; it was easier to trust him.

The pleasure of his fingers leveled out and I knew I was ready for more. I sighed happily when Ivar removed his hand, knowing he was about to replace it with his thick cock. He lined himself up and pushed in smoothly, our twin exhales ringing through the room as we lost ourselves in the feeling of it.

Ivar made a contented little noise and rested his weight fully on top of me again. I arched my back to pull him a fraction deeper; he writhed his hips slowly, giving just a little bit of movement to our joining. I found that in this position he was pressed right against something truly delicious inside of me, as he rested on his elbows and retrieved his knife. He continued to hump me almost lazily as he laid the cool blade against my cheek, just below my eye.

I sucked my breath in harshly. I didn’t think it was wise for him to mark up my face, though the fear of it made my body tense so very pleasantly around his girth. I mewled his name in a plaintive warning.

Ivar chuckled and removed the knife. He leaned in and kissed me in the very same spot. “You can trust me,” he said. He continued to nuzzle my cheek and ear as he pumped himself more strongly into my hungry _kunta._ “Gods, Sigrunn…” he moaned into my ear. “You make me happier than I dared to think possible.”

Somehow that chilled me more than his threats. I adored playing his games, but did I really want Ivar Ragnarsson in love with me? He thrusted harder and I stopped worrying about it, the golden, strident pleasure of his insistent cock overtaking any other concern.

I felt the tip of his knife scratch down my neck, and he slowed his pace just a little to focus. He rested on his left elbow, arm wrapped around the top my shoulder, hand gripping for leverage so he could keep pressing himself fervently into me. He traced the knife back and forth across my right shoulderblade, a little more pressure with every pass.

It was easier not to flinch than it had been in the beginning. The thickness between my legs was the more overwhelming sensation now. I closed my eyes and lost myself in that joy, the movement of Ivar’s knife only adding bright red slashes to the colors already dancing across my eyelids.

The cuts were getting deeper as his thrusts came more quickly. Ivar groaned when he realized he had to choose to focus on only one or the other right now or he’d injure me too greatly. He set the knife down and I felt his tongue in a broad sweep across the final wound. I wondered how much blood was welling up.

Ivar kept his face against my torn skin, moaning like he was drunk and settling in to fuck me seriously. He was so deep at this angle. As his thrusts became more forceful it felt like he was reaching the very end of me, bumping something sensitive and overwhelming. Stars burst behind my eyes as he rocked into me faster and faster; I thought to myself that I never wanted this to end just as I wondered how much longer I could really take it. His rhythm stuttered, and the deep groan he let out against my back was almost a roar as he pressed himself into me as hard as he could.

He spasmed a few times and then I felt his entire body relax. His contented exhale cooled the angry lines covering my shoulderblade and I became aware of just how many of those lines he had drawn.  We had given each other so much pleasure, but it couldn’t be like this every time, could it? I’d be more scarred than the most hardened veteran.

The intensity between my legs faded slowly as he softened. Ivar was making little pleased murmuring sounds and licked every red line clean before he pulled himself out and rolled onto his back beside me.

I felt warm and fuzzy all over. I twisted my head to the other side so I could face him and then I did not want to move another muscle. I watched Ivar’s chest expand and contract beside me as he stared up at the ceiling; he seemed to be feeling the same way. I stared at his parted lips, the total peace around his perfect brows. I pondered once more how unfairly beautiful he was. He didn’t even have to do anything, say anything, and I wanted to give him whatever I could, care for him in any way he might ask. And of course it was all the worse when he actually looked at me.

He turned those brilliant eyes toward me now, expression clear and content and almost playful. He rolled onto his side, traced his fingertips along my cheek, brushing aside a sweaty lock of hair.

“I never thought the gods would make me a woman so perfect as you.”

“Is that why I was made?” I responded dryly. I felt so warm and safe, so distant from fear right now. It made it easier to challenge him.

“Yes,” Ivar only replied, ignoring my sarcasm with a smile that was deep and pleased. He pressed a kiss into my forehead. “You are the prize they made for me, the very least that I deserve after all of the suffering they have put me through.” He lifted his head, traced his fingers lightly around the edges of the wounds on my shoulder. “They gave me strange desires and then they gave me someone who wants me to slake them all upon her flesh.” He pressed a kiss to one of the angry lines and I tried not to flinch at the sting of the sudden contact.

He laid his face back down in front of mine. “I almost cannot believe that you are here,” he said, his expression so relaxed, so peaceful. “I wonder if we are dreaming.”

“If this were a dream, this wouldn’t sting so badly,” I said, twitching my shoulderblade and wincing.

Ivar frowned, but his eyes were soft and sympathetic. “I will get a cloth with cool water, to soothe you.”

As he started dragging himself away, I almost got up and did it myself, imagining how much more complicated such a simple task would be for him than for me. But I resisted the urge, made myself lie there and not insult him by condescending. It was an important part of whatever we were doing here, that I would allow him to love me and care for me afterwards.

As Ivar pressed a wet cloth carefully over my sore skin, he spoke again. “Was this too much?” he asked quietly. “I do not want to hurt you more than you want me to.”

I sighed and enjoyed the feeling of his comforting hand pressing the cool compress into my back as I thought about how to respond. “This… was good.” I felt him sag a little against me, relieved to hear it. “What I like most is the anticipation; to be afraid. And I can’t be very afraid if you don’t eventually do something to me.” I paused and felt him exhale in a soft laugh against the bare skin of my back. “And I like to look at how you have marked me. But pain is still pain, and I do not desire to feel truly _injured_ by you in the days that follow.”

Ivar kept his hand on my back but laid down alongside me so that we could look at each other’s faces again.

“You react like you feel pleasure when I hurt you. What does it feel like?”

I brought my hand up and watched my finger trace his collarbone. I could never seem to stop touching him. “When you give me first pleasure, then a little pain, it… changes it. In wonderful ways. Like you have added an exotic spice to a dish.” Ivar smiled. “When you give me more pain… it still hurts, like it would hurt anyone.” My eyes flicked back up to his. “I don’t believe I am built as differently from other women as you imagine. But at times... I let you do it because sometimes it pleases me to know that I am taking the pain well. The world narrows and I imagine that you are proud of me.”

Ivar's face was open and attentive; he looked even a little bit amazed. He leaned in, eyes widening sincerely. “I _am_ proud of you, when you are so strong and bear these things. Just for me.”

Our hands found each other’s then, fingers winding together as something huge and warm began swelling in my chest. I rolled to face him; I wanted to reply, to squeeze this overwhelming feeling into words, but I couldn’t find any to suit. Ivar’s face cracked like he might be feeling something similar and then our bodies crashed back into each other. We pressed our hearts close together, so that maybe they could whisper to each other the things our tongues wouldn’t say. We were too close to even kiss; burying our faces into each others’ necks instead.

Our first sign that our solitude was at an end was the sound of two men belting out a raunchy song outside the cabin. I recognized the high, clear tones of Sigurd easily; his voice was pleasant, if a bit slurred. The other was deeper and jarringly off-key. I looked at Ivar; he was already frowning. Two sets of boot stomped up to the door and it squealed open.

“Brothers! I am home!” the lower voice belted out. It had to be Hvitserk. Ivar and I were concealed behind the hanging tapestry, but I pulled a fur over my body anyway, rolled onto my side and started looking for my dress.

“No one is home,” Ivar growled. “Go take your drunk asses somewhere else.”

“Little Ivar!” Hvitserk roared in response, intoxicated glee pouring from his throat. “Embrace your triumphant brother!” I felt Ivar cringe at the condescending tone in his voice. The sound of him stomping toward our corner gave me a single second’s warning of what would happen next.

I managed to pull the fur up to my neck just before Hvitserk whipped the curtain back, sloppy grin freezing on his face when he realized Ivar was not alone back here. Now the only brother that hadn’t caught me directly in Ivar’s bed was Bjorn; I wondered idly how long it would be before that happened too.

Hvitserk squinted at me. “Is that _Harald’s_ daughter?” Ivar smirked at his brother and settled his arm around me. Hvitserk looked back into the main room, seeking Sigurd’s reaction.

“Again?” came their brother’s response. “Actually, I do not know why I am surprised. He has been on her from the moment you all went south.”

Hvitserk frowned back down at us. “This isn’t wise, Ivar,” he said, shaking his head. “I would not want Harald Finehair for an enemy.”

I sat up, still clutching the fur around me. “Ivar hasn’t stolen me,” I said crossly. “I will go back to my father tomorrow.” I didn’t want to talk about what my father would think of Ivar and me. Not right now.

“You are just jealous,” Ivar added. For once I was grateful that his pettiness would neatly change the focus of conversation.  

Hvitserk looked me over, a sly smile tugging at his mouth. “Perhaps.” His eyes flashed back to his youngest brother. “But be careful. We do not need to bring Harald’s wrath down on us right now.”

Ivar waved his hand dismissively. “He will be happy that a son of the great Ragnar Lothbrok has chosen her.”

Even I looked at Ivar skeptically at that one.

“Harald is our ally for now,” Hvitserk replied, crossing his arms, “but he has never been that much in awe of our father. He joins with us when it suits his own purposes.”

I kept myself silent; Hvitserk had said enough. I was not about to betray my father’s plans just to impress Ivar with how naïve he was being. I thought it was possible that Father might allow me to marry a son of Ragnar, but in truth the path to get there would not be simple.

Ivar looked like he was about to keep arguing; I stilled him with a cool hand on his shoulder as I addressed Hvitserk again. “It is good to see you again, Hvitserk. But if we are going to keep chatting, would you kindly step back and allow me to dress first?”

The boy couldn’t resist ogling my exposed shoulders just a little before he let the curtain fall back between us. He mumbled something that made Sigurd laugh as he walked back over to the hearth.

Ivar clutched at my shoulder, turning my attention back to him. He wanted to ask me whether my father would approve of us, I could see it in the sudden urgency of his glare. I had always managed to side-step this conversation, and I still didn’t want to have it. I leaned forward and kissed him. Ivar’s lips were hard for a moment and then he yielded, bringing his hands to my face and pulling us back down amongst the furs.

I could hear Ivar’s brothers settling in by the hearth, as my lover’s kiss grew deeper and more insistent. “They interrupted us before we finished,” he murmured to me. “You have not yet found your release.”

I had almost forgotten, but at his reminder the pressure still lingering between my legs throbbed once more. “But your brothers…”

“Let them hear,” Ivar said, drawing the fur away and sliding down alongside my body, “or try to be very, very quiet.” He brushed his face over my hipbone and then flipped my leg over his shoulder.

I had to let him; the temptation of his mouth warming me there was entirely too much to resist.

He started with fingertips, face propped against my thigh as he re-acquainted himself with the terrain. It wasn’t nearly enough, and he read that easily from the wanton way my hips rolled and how I tugged at his hair. With a smile full of pride and anticipation he leaned in and locked his mouth right around my clit.

It became clear almost immediately that he meant to make me come fast and hard. His tongue flicked at that sensitive bud at a ravishing pace, and I clamped my own hand over my mouth to suppress the little wails soon trying to escape my throat.

“Are you two coming out of there?” Hvitserk called from the other side of the curtain.

Ivar turned his head in their direction. “No.” His voice was a thick and throaty, and if the tone didn’t tip them off, the strangled cry that Ivar squeezed from me when he returned abruptly to his business certainly must have.

I was mortified, but that did not in any way dampen my pleasure or my eagerness for Ivar to bring me my release. He shifted and then I felt one finger pressing inside of me. I arched my back and sobbed against my own hand when he added a second, sliding them in and out relentlessly underneath the steady attentions of his tongue on my sensitive bud. He had me so close to the precipice. I was eager to finish as quickly as I could make myself, and get the embarrassment over with.

Ivar lifted his face, though his fingers kept pumping. “Say my name,” he urged lowly.

“Ivar,” I whispered, voice just as quiet as his.

He pouted his lip and pushed his fingers into me harder and faster. “Not like that. I want them to hear you.” He dropped his face back to my aching clit and did his best to force the noises out of me.

I couldn’t do it. It felt too petty, too rude. I held my breath to keep myself quiet; it would only be a few more moments before my orgasm would break.

Ivar stopped abruptly and dragged himself up alongside me, face a dark and roiling storm. He settled himself partly on top of me and brought his right hand back down between my legs, fingers quickly finding my swollen nub and getting back to work on it.

I closed my eyes against the tempest in his face and let a satisfied sigh escaped my lips; his firm, dancing fingers were already hitting me just right. Ivar’s other hand crept over my face.

“Fine,” he grumbled. “If you won’t say my name, you don’t need to breathe at all.” His palm sealed my mouth as his fingers pinched neatly against my nose, closing off every airway.

My eyes flew open, staring at him in surprise. I felt my chest and belly working, trying to suck in air that would not move. His lower hand kept rubbing my clit, and if anything this was bringing me even closer to the brink of my pleasure. But would I come before the need to breathe grew too awful?

Ivar was watching me closely, and tipped his hand away just as I started to feel the edge of panic creeping up. My breath rushed out and the pleasure between my legs flared with it. He let me fill my lungs once and then he smothered me again, his maddeningly beautiful eyes boring into mine. “Your choice, pet.”

The rush of this little death was too incredible, too sweet. When he let me pant a few more times while I decided, I wrapped my fingers around his wrist and pressed his palm down to cover my mouth again.

I stared into his delighted eyes, savoring the absolute control I was giving him over my body. A moment later I came so hard against his hand that I would have been screaming if there had been any way for the air to move across my throat. His smile was gratified, and a little bit awed, as he watched my body curl and my gaze lose focus. He relaxed his hand but kept it rubbing over my mouth, making me suck my next desperate breath from between his fingers. My sharp inhale made a strange noise that his brothers would probably hear and wonder about. Perhaps that would be enough to satisfy Ivar’s pettiness.

His fingers finally stopped rolling against my clit and my body started remembering how to relax. Ivar let his hand slide down a little further, letting me breathe deeply and easily again but keeping the weight of his palm against my jaw, his fingers splayed over my face. He seemed reluctant to let go, and I did not want him to. I liked how it reminded me of what he had just done as my body shuddered through the aftershocks of that intense orgasm.

We heard Ubbe and Margrethe come back in, listened to them greet Hvitserk with joy in their voices. I rubbed my face against Ivar’s shoulder. The slapping sound must be Ubbe clapping his brother on the back; the soft, low murmurs that came next implied that Hvitserk and Margrethe shared some kind of close feeling as well. “Is Ivar still…” we heard Ubbe ask.

“Oh, they are back there,” Sigurd replied icily. “And they are definitely still awake.”

“They should join us, then,” Ubbe said. “The brothers are reunited and we should all share a drink before we sleep.”

I looked up at Ivar; he did not look happy about the idea. I waited for him to respond but he said nothing.

I laid in his arms for a minute, listening to the others exchange pleasantries and settle in around the hearth. “Let’s get dressed and join them,” I whispered.

“I don’t want to.” His hands smoothed down my flanks. “Stay here with me.”

I started to get up anyway, smiling and thinking he was only being stubborn. He grabbed me hard around the arm and would not let me rise. “Ivar!” I hissed in shock. His face was hard and angry.

“Are you alright, Princess?” Ubbe called to me.

Ivar’s cold eyes glared a clear warning to me. “Of course,” I heard myself say. My ears buzzed strangely as I let him guide me down to settle at his side, face nestled on his smooth chest. I didn’t need to go sit with the others that badly; this wasn’t worth embarrassing anyone. Besides, Ivar was right. I did not risk my father’s wrath in order to sit around a fire with my lover's brothers. I was here to feel Ivar’s arms wrapped around me all night as we drifted off to sleep.

And yet for some reason, I found sleep to be a long time coming.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the bottom of my heart, thank you, to everyone that has been following this story. I can tell you for a fact that this sequel would not exist without the overwhelming support you fans have been giving me, and it wouldn't have been nearly as good without your feedback and comments as we go along. I have never done anything like this, such a long plot, before, and you all have made the experience so amazing. I have learned so much and my gratitude to you knows no bounds.
> 
> The next chunk of updates will probably take a month again. In the meantime you can follow me on tumblr at https://www.tumblr.com/blog/whenimaunicorn if you'd like to be amused by the flailings of my ongoing creative process. (for anything pertaining to this fic I use the tag #hold me down fic)


	7. things left unsaid by the faint of heart

Ivar clutched at me all night long. Our sleep was not exactly restful, neither of us accustomed to the presence of the other. Each time one of us stirred, his hands would grasp at me again, curling over my edges or pulling my arms back around him. I had dreamt of being together like this for so long – breathing his scent, feeling the steady beat of his heart – but it was harder to relax than I had anticipated. What was relaxing about Ivar Ragnarsson? Each time I woke enough to become conscious of who the warm body beside me actually was, a fresh thrill ran through me. It was exciting even just to be this close to him while he slept. We had shared our bodies many times now, but the intimacy of passion was a very different creature than this stillness.

What would real intimacy with Ivar be like, I wondered. I tried to imagine spending every night like this one. What would it feel like to share Ivar’s bed, and his life, day in and day out? I did not feel ready for marriage, yet I knew that my father would send me home if I did not produce a reason to stay and engagement seemed the most obvious option. How else could Ivar and I be allowed to be together like this?

The first time I had considered being married to the man beside me, I had shuddered with dread. When exactly had that possibility become instead my favorite daydream? I still doubted that being wife to Ivar would ever be easy, or even pleasant. But somehow I found myself longing to rise to the challenge, imagining the pride I might feel if I became the person who could manage his moods, an expert at weathering his storms. He had nothing but his father’s name right now, but I could see him on a throne one day, ruling a kingdom he had carved out for himself through both charisma and blood. I drifted back to sleep imagining myself on a throne beside his, our fingers entwined and my belly heavy with his child.

When we woke we stayed in bed, curled around each other, as we listened to the others rise and head down to the town. We made love again, lazy and slow, though this time he remembered not to spill his seed inside me. That was another reason I may have felt pulled to rush into the topic of marriage; I hated the burst of anxiety that shocked my limbs every time I imagined becoming with child before I had my father’s approval. Before I knew for certain that everything would be alright if I tied my life to Ivar’s so permanently. I just wanted to feel like everything was going to be alright.

 

*****

 

Father’s camp was below the Ragnarsson’s cabin, but I made sure to stroll through the edges of Kattegat a little before turning that way, so my father’s men would see me coming in from the right direction. Familiar faces greeted me as I strolled through the camp; Father’s warriors, men that had feasted with me since childhood. Their warm smiles straightened my spine and started to bolster something I had almost forgotten was missing in the distraction of the previous months. These were _my_ people. I was safe now, no longer any kind of prisoner. I was among men who would fight to the death for me. A new confidence started to stir in my belly, and I made sure to look every warrior in the eye as they greeted me, incline my head with the kind of gracious smile I imagined Aslaug would give. The kind of Princess that inspires loyalty, and courage.

I found King Harald and his brother finishing their breakfast. Father looked to be deep in thought but his eyes lit up when I joined them. He bade me to sit beside him, poured me some water and invited me right into his thoughts. “So much has changed here at Kattegat. Everything in our world will be affected. There are new opportunities; we just have to find them.” Father looked at me in a way he never quite had before. Like I was an adult; something approaching an equal. “And you, Sigrunn, have been here for so much of it. You can help me make sense of this corner of Norway, what might be the best way to strike. Or help me understand how best to consolidate power once we have it.” My eyes lit up, a ferocious pride sparking inside me, to be so included. “Let us start with the biggest surprise. Tell me how Aslaug died.”

I clenched my teeth as I tried to decide where to begin. The anger over the way of it was still a coldness in my belly. “I did not witness it directly. Queen Aslaug bid me to stay safe and not get involved on that day.” I took a breath. “Lagertha called Ragnar’s sons to Hedeby, and imprisoned them there while she brought her forces to invade Kattegat. Only Ubbe and Sigurd were around at that time; Ivar was in England with his father.”

“Which one is Ivar? I thought he was the cripple,” Halfdan interjected.

I looked back at my uncle coolly. “He is.”

“And Ragnar brought him _raiding_?”

“He did.”

Father’s eyebrows lifted. “And how did he fare? I only heard bits and pieces of this story. Ragnar is dead so clearly it cannot have gone very well.”

I shared what details I knew. “They were caught in a storm during the crossing. I believe only Ragnar and Ivar survived the wreck. They were taken prisoner by King Ecbert, whom Ragnar had sailed to take vengeance upon. Apparently Ragnar convinced him to send his son Ivar back here, while Ecbert gave Ragnar up to the king in Northumbria, who desired vengeance of his own.”

Father sat back in his chair, in the posture he assumed for contemplation. “A very strange chain of events. One that has all our people now gearing up for war. Still, I wonder what Ragnar had intended to do, had the shipwreck not taken the few warriors he had. From what I understand, he did not take nearly enough to truly threaten Wessex. But that man always had a plan, and it was always devious.”

“I know not, Father. But I know Aslaug foresaw the storm, and that they proceeded despite her warning. The shipwreck was part of the plan of the gods, if not of Ragnar’s.”

Harald grunted. “And while they were gone, Lagertha took Kattegat.”

“Yes,” I said, gathering my thoughts to resume that story. “From what I have overheard, she intended to supplant Aslaug so that when Ragnar came home he would take her to wife again, or at least that they would rule Kattegat together. I do not think she is actually happy about running this kingdom without him.”

“A strange way to win your husband back,” Halfdan commented. “Admirable, though.”

I glared at him. “What is admirable about shooting an unarmed woman in the back? Aslaug had surrendered, and agreed to leave the kingdom with her sons.”

“Sometimes the passions of jealousy cannot be denied,” my uncle responded, refusing to grant me the point.

“And now the vengeance of her sons will not be denied, either,” I shot back.

“It seemed like Bjorn put a stop to that,” Harald cut in.

I lifted my eyebrows wryly. “That was their _third_ attempt on Lagertha’s life. It will not be their last. Ubbe and Ivar at least will not leave their mother unavenged.”

“Which she had to expect. Why do you think, daughter, that Lagertha was so careful to keep Aslaug’s sons alive?”

“Because they are Ragnar’s sons.”

“And why did she not kill them once she knew Ragnar was dead and she no longer had to fear upsetting him?”

I thought about it for a moment. I had overheard many fragments of Lagertha’s intimate conversations over the months of my captivity. “She intends to meet him in Valhalla. She does not want to ever be responsible for any of his sons’ deaths, so he will not turn away from her there. She cares for them, even now. They do not live in the town but she supports them as members of the household still, sending food, letting them use the slaves… Kattegat is hers but she is not stripping them entirely of their birthrights. And the gathering army is theirs and she knows it.”

Harald took a sip from his horn, moving on. “I am impressed with the size of this army. Ubbe has done well; Ragnar Lothbrok may be a famous man, but I did not think he commanded this kind of respect while he was alive.”

“It may be that he did not,” Halfdan commented. “Death and vengeance have their own ways of moving people.”

I nodded at my uncle,and took a deep breath before speaking next. “I do not think Ubbe is the one to bear most of the credit for this army.”

“Oh no?” Father replied. I could hear in his voice that I had piqued his interest.

“Of all the sons of Ragnar, there is one who is the clear heir to his cunning, to the intelligence of his mind. And that is Ivar, despite his shortcomings. Perhaps because of them. I would wager is was he who devised most of the plans, who authored the negotiations that brought so many kings and powerful men to our cause.” I realized too late I had said “our” and hoped that Father did not notice.

I watched him consider my words. I was relieved that he had not scoffed outright, at least. “You think this, or you know this?”

I bowed my head. “It is mostly speculation. Lagertha kept me away from Ragnar’s boys after she took control. But you asked me to assess the character of everyone in Ragnar’s house. Ivar, though he is the youngest, is the one who drives and manipulates his brothers. He has the strongest will and the sharpest mind.” My heart was starting to beat faster and I willed my face to stay smooth. I so desperately needed Father to respect my lover.

Harald studied my face, weighing my words and trying to decide how to take them. “That is… unexpected. I will watch these boys, and see for myself.” A small, indulgent little smile flashed across his face. “I remember that you had an odd attachment to the cripple when last you were here. The kindness in your heart is very admirable, daughter.”

I didn’t like the condescending way my father was speaking, but I was hesitant to reveal too much about my “odd attachment” to Ivar. Now did not feel like the right time.

My uncle seemed to guess something was afoot, however. “You said that Lagertha kept you away from Ragnar’s sons, why was that?” Halfdan asked, a smirk brewing in his face.

I think I blushed a little. “She did not like… how close we were becoming,” I said vaguely, but my uncomfortable tone made it clear I was not talking about innocent friendship.

Father’s brow creased and Uncle Halfdan broke into a broad smile at his discomfort. “You had to know she was going to start turning heads, brother. We can use this, you know. You never know when a lovesick Ragnarsson might come in handy.”

Father grunted. “It is true, Sigrunn is a woman grown now.” He turned back to me. “I have been thinking as we returned from our voyage that it is time to start entertaining proposals for you, Daughter. This gathering of our people affords many opportunities to make new friends, and to strengthen alliances. There are so many important people coming, or already here, that I need to speak with.” He smiled broadly at me. “When I do I will make it known that the daughter of King Finehair is looking for suitors. Surely this is our best chance to find a worthy match for you.”

He didn’t seem to notice the color draining from my face, how still I went.

“I want you to make your choice as carefully as my Princess Ellisef did, when she promised to marry me only after I became King of all Norway. You can take your time in the choosing, but start here, meet all the princes and kings. There are men here who have already proven themselves more greatly than Ragnar’s sons. Though if those boys are among the ones courting your favor, all the better.”

I returned my father’s gaze with a much weaker smile of my own. I knew that look. He could wax poetic about ‘his princess’ and my choice, but he had _plans_ in the works. And Father’s plans always served his own ambitions above all else; my own wishes would barely make a dent. Why should I bother even trying to express them. Still, his words gave me the slimmest hope. “Why? Do you wish to marry me to a son of Ragnar?” I asked, still lacking the courage to name my dreams to him.

Father’s face didn’t change. “Not necessarily. But it serves my purposes for people to think that it might be so.”

I looked down, hoping to hide my disappointment.

He went on. “Our family has a solid history of cooperation with the Lothbroks. And yet everyone knows I need Kattegat to reach my goal and win my princess. If I were to engage you tomorrow to some foreign king, it would look like I might finally be pulling my allegiance away from Ragnar’s family.” He sat back, looking pleased with himself and his deviousness. “Help me here, daughter. Let the sons of Ragnar feel that we are still very close friends.”

My thoughts raced to fit my own goals into my father’s greater plans. He appeared to be affording me exactly the stretch of time and opportunity I had been hoping to buy, after all. It wasn’t like I wanted to be engaged to Ivar tomorrow either. “I am sure they will be happy to resume our friendship, now that Lagertha will no longer be restricting me.”

“Yes, I will speak to her about that,” Father said.

“No need,” I replied swiftly, terrified at the thought of the two of them comparing notes. “Your camp looks comfortable enough. I will move my things here today; I have grown tired of her court anyway.”

Father seemed surprised, looking around at the tents and campfires full of rough men surrounding us. “Are you certain?” I nodded, hopefully not too vigorously. “You are not too busy this afternoon? I imagine you would be helping to prepare the feast.”

I took a sip of my water to cover my confusion. Lagertha had invited Father to a feast? “No,” I said lamely. “I am not very… close with Lagertha’s household.” It was probably a formal celebration of her son’s return. Something I would have known about if I had spent last night at the great hall.

Father grinned at my vague remark, jumping to his own conclusions. “Ah, women,” he said, looking at his brother, “you can never keep too many of them in the same place without trouble brewing, can you.” I faked a smile as Uncle Halfdan slammed his cup on the table and guffawed his agreement. “Very well, daughter of mine. I will have someone hang a partition in my tent and you can move your things in there.”

I stood up to take my leave then, suddenly exhausted by this conversation.

“You may need to grow accustomed to rough living, anyway,” Father added thoughtfully. “It will take time for you to meet all the kings and great men gathered with this army, and I do not wish to squander this opportunity. Negotiations for an engagement may not be finished before it is time to set sail for England.” His eyes locked onto mine again. “You may have to cross the sea with us, little princess.”

 

*****

 

Ivar smiled down on me, face dappled in the afternoon light filtering through the trees. We were lying together in the clearing behind the Ragnarssons’ cabin, naked under the blankets we had dragged out there. My lover’s brow was smooth, his eyes clear, easy, and blue as the autumn sky above us. And he was smiling. Simply smiling, no bitterness or cruel impulse clouding the perfect invitation of his features. I was not sure that I had ever seen him display a happiness so pure. With a whole uninterrupted afternoon in the grass I had been able finally to pull his mind away from all his troubles and sing his demons to sleep.

His smile slipped as he began to press himself slowly into me, but only so his mouth could form a little ‘o’ at the sublime feeling of our joining. I am sure I wore a similar expression as I savored the feel of him sliding home once more. Our eyes remained locked; each basking in the other’s enjoyment.

We couldn’t keep it slow for long. Our hips rocked quicker and harder, our soft moans floating away on the gentle breeze. This time Ivar remembered to withdraw before he could spill his seed in me, pressing instead my hand to his shaft so I could draw the milky-white spurts from him into the space between us. His eyes were closed as he shuddered through the rest of his passion; when they opened and he lowered his head I saw that there was plenty still left in there for me. Ivar was quick to grant me my release with his mouth, tongue swirling with relish until he soothed my hungry _kunta._

After, we lay side by side, bodies wiped clean and blankets arranged more warmly over us again. We were silent for a long time. I had thought Ivar was enjoying the peace as much as I was.

“You still have not spoken of your meeting with your father this morning. Did you have an interesting conversation?” he asked, a thread of tension under the casual tone with which he spoke the words.

“We did,” I replied simply, staring at the clouds and thinking furiously about how I would share Father’s decision to offer me up for other suitors. It was going to ruin our peaceful afternoon.

“Bjorn thinks King Harald is surely plotting against us,” Ivar said. Oh. He was thinking about politics, not our relationship. He turned his head against the blanket beneath us, body still motionless and peaceful, then brought his fingers to my chin to make sure he had my attention. This was a very dangerous topic. Ice ran through my veins as I let him turn my face toward his. “You would tell me if he was, wouldn’t you?”

I had not expected Ivar to ask such a thing so plainly, or so early in our courtship. “Of course,” I heard myself say. I forced my eyes wide and innocent.

There was a terrible silence as Ivar gave me a measured look. “Now I know what you look like when you lie to me,” he said, voice eerily calm.

I was frightened but for once felt the urge to fight. “It was a stupid question to ask,” I said crossly, pulling my chin from his fingers and propping myself up a little higher. “Would you even respect me if I agreed to betray my father so easily? A woman’s loyalty should always be with her family.”

“Until she has a husband, and renounces the people that she came from.”

“Yes,” I agreed cautiously. “Until then.”

Ivar nodded, like I had confirmed something for him. Then his brow creased and he looked back up at the sky. “I would respect you more if spoke the truth to me. Why did you feel you had to lie?”

I drew in a shaky breath and pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “You bully me, Ivar. You are very intimidating.”

He frowned. “And you are very faint-hearted, Sigrunn.”

I swallowed that, though it hurt going down. 

“It is alright for a woman to be timid,” he said, likely not realizing how condescending his soothing sounded. “But you need to trust me, if…” he cut himself off, changing his mind. “Did you tell the great King Harald about me, about us?” he asked, eyes the same color as the sky and just as placid, only the set of his jaw betraying how strongly he might be feeling.

“Not… really.” My stomach sank further as I realized I was only confirming his statement about my character. When Ivar did not react I kept talking. “It did not feel like the right time. We spoke about what happened to your mother, and what Lagertha has been doing since then.”

Ivar ground his teeth and looked back up to the sky. Here was a topic that could easily distract him. His anger at Lagertha was still so fresh; the passage of time had done nothing to dim his need for vengeance. “The others are all siding with Bjorn, now,” he said bitterly. “Bastards. Cowards. How can they disrespect Mother like this? Every time I remember that Lagertha is still breathing, it makes me sick.”

“Steel yourself,” I said softly. “Her time will come. And you will be the one to bring her death to her.”

“And then Bjorn will cut me down next.” Ivar looked at me again, eyes wide and deadly serious. “I am a coward too,” he confessed. “I could sneak into the hall and kill Lagertha tonight, or any night. Or while she bathes, or as she dines…. There are endless opportunities to deal her a mortal wound.” His chest heaved in a great sigh. “But without anyone supporting me, my own death would be next. Especially now that Bjorn has returned. And I find that I love my own life too much to throw it away, even to avenge Mother.” He swallowed hard. “And I hate myself for that.”

“I don’t.” I rolled fully on my side to face him, took his right hand between mine. Ivar watched me, face guarded. “It is a good thing, to let reason win out over passion, to understand the consequences of our choices.” I ignored the nagging feeling that I should be applying this advice to my own life. “Your mother would not want you to die for her, anyway. A man should respect the value of his own life, especially when there are people that care for him.” I looked down, suddenly uncomfortable, but Ivar captured one of my hands when I tried to pull away.

“When I heard that Mother was dead, I thought this: ‘now there is no one left in the world that cares for me.’” He played with my fingers while he chose his next words.

I felt warm and terrified at the same time; I wasn’t ready to hear Ivar confess his love or let him bind me to him in another way. Not now, not when Father had just returned and all the possibilities of my life were wide open again. I rushed to change the subject before the conversation led to things that we couldn’t take back. “People do care for you, Ivar. Your brothers do.”

His face shifted, but I could not read the content of his thoughts. “Do they?” he scowled. “They fight me at every turn.”

“ _You_ fight _them_ , Ivar,” I argued, perhaps more assertively than was wise. But the adrenaline of the thing I was trying not to talk about spurred me on. “You set yourself against them, when you are not holding yourself apart.”

“I am apart,” Ivar said bitterly. “I am not like them, and they have never treated me like I am one of them.”

“Do they not? Have they not taken you in and cared for you when you returned home, do they not include you in their conversations, and in their plans? Do they not train with you, eat and drink with you?”

“Only because I force my way into their circle. I will not allow them to leave me behind anymore.”

I sighed. “I see them trying. You do not make it easy for anyone to like you, Ivar.”

He gave me a long look and I could read none of the thoughts behind his eyes. My fingers were still clutched between his; he started idly stroking and wiggling them again as he looked back up to the sky. His voice was soft and contemplative when he spoke his next words. “Mother wanted you for my bride, did you know that?”

“I… had an idea, from some of the things that she said while you were gone.”

“She asked me what I thought on the matter; she said it would be a good alliance for us but also…” he trailed off, rephrasing his thoughts. “She knew it might be easier to try and marry you to one of my brothers. They are older, and their legs work,” he barked with that bitter laugh. “But she believed you would take care of me, better than another woman. She noticed how kind you always were to me. So she was set on making the more difficult match.”

“And how did you answer her, when she asked?”

Ivar’s mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. “I said I didn’t need my mother picking a wife for me. She treated it like that was her responsibility, to find someone who would love me, who would take care of me when she was gone.” His jaw clenched. “That is not love, that is pity.”

“Your mother loved you, Ivar.” He didn’t look at me, but he listened. “She believed you fated to die, you know, the moment you left for England. She was so distraught she wouldn’t eat. We did every magic we could think of to try and change your fate. Perhaps it even worked; after all, you are here. She loved you more than anything in this world, Ivar. What I saw was not pity.”

Ivar kept staring at the sky. His eyes were starting to redden, the skin around them growing puffy. “I wish I was kinder to her before I left,” he whispered. “I never thought…”

My heart swelled in compassion for him. My own mother had died in a sickbed, everyone so worried the disease would spread that I was barely allowed to touch her, and I was too young to be cosoled only with words. I laid my head on Ivar’s chest and clung to him in what I hoped was a comforting embrace, remembering that pain. He did not push me away, and after a loud sniff his arms wrapped tight around my shoulders.

As we laid that way in silence, my sadness retreated. For me it was a wound that was long closed. I realized my chest was warming now, and it was not only in sympathy for Ivar’s grief. Hearing him open up to me like this, expressing regret for bad behavior; to hear him mention a desire to be more kind… what was swelling in my breast was hope. Maybe he was becoming more than just a spoiled and selfish little brat.

He squeezed me up higher on his chest so he could press a kiss to the top of my head. “Things will get better now,” he whispered.

I should have asked him what he meant.


	8. i want her by my side

There was indeed a feast at the hall that night, to formally welcome the return of Bjorn’s expedition to the lands south of Frankia. As my father had been part of the voyage, he and his household, myself included, were guests of honor. Lagertha sat at the head of the long table, Bjorn and then Torvi at her left and Astrid at her right. Uncle Halfdan was seated next to Astrid and was deep enough in his cups to keep trying to make her laugh, ignoring any signs of her annoyance. I was seated between him and my father, which put Hvitserk, another honored guest, across from me. If it discomforted him to sit as a guest rather than family member at the table he grew up supping at, it did not show in his face.

It showed in Ivar’s. The youngest son of Ragnar sat at the furthest end of the table and brooded, all his brothers sitting between him and the woman he hated most in all the world. As the evening wore on he began to participate in the conversation at the foot of the table, Floki and Helga on the other side of my father drawing him out slowly, but he took frequent excuses to glare up at the woman sitting in his mother’s place.

I was not able to catch Ivar’s eye as often as I would have liked, as every time I did I would have to look directly past my father’s profile. I knew he would become aware of our relationship eventually, but I felt compelled to hide what I could, and as we ate I found myself trying to pay equal attention to all of the sons of Ragnar arrayed in a line across from me. I was conscious too of Lagertha’s eyes upon me, and was certain that Astrid was marking how little Ivar and I spoke to one another by the time the meal was ending.

A round of rich mead followed the ale we had been drinking with dinner, and Lagertha stood and made a toast to her son and the other voyagers. She said nothing of the reason for their abrupt and early return, nor of the grand plans everyone else was embarking upon next. It seemed she intended tonight only for celebration of her son, without mention of the shadow of Ragnar Lothbrok hanging over us all.

As the flowing mead lubricated the variety of tensions seething under the festivities, conversations grew louder and more focused; people began leaving their seats and mingling as they wished. Sigurd took the earliest opportunity to vacate the seat next to his brooding brother; their already-strained relationship seemed to be turning icier all the time. As my father grew involved in conversation with Lagertha, I left my seat and slid into the empty chair next to Ivar’s.

The prince let a faint smile touch his features as he acknowledged me mid-sentence. He was discussing something about Saxon buildings with Floki as I silently joined them, and he did not let my presence interrupt his train of thought.

Helga gave me a warm smile from across the table. “Princess Sigrunn,” she said sweetly, “welcome. Save me from their endless strategizing.”

Ivar frowned at her but Floki put his arm around his wife and giggled with affection. “Young Ivar is just so full of ideas.”

“And Floki saw parts of Wessex that I did not,” Ivar explained. From the heavy way his eyes slid over to my face, their delay in shifting focus, I could see that he had gotten quite drunk already. “Once we blood eagle Aelle we must take our vengeance right to Ecbert’s doorstep. This, we think, will be the greater challenge.”

Floki nodded sagely, then giggled again. Perhaps the mead had been flowing a bit faster at this end of the table.

Ivar suppressed his answering smile and doggedly continued. “From what I saw of Ecbert’s ‘castle,’ the fortifications are even stronger than what the bitch is trying to build here around Kattegat.” He took a slug from his horn, as if even a second’s reminder of Lagertha left a bad taste in his mouth. “We must do what we can to avoid a siege, but Floki and I have some ideas if it comes to that.” As he spoke, Ivar’s hand had found mine, and he finally trailed off his speech as he distracted himself with weaving his fingers through my own.

Floki and Helga both looked at us a little dumbly. The simple gesture spoke volumes about what had happened between us while Ivar’s surrogate uncle and aunt were gone.

“You have grown so much, Ivar,” Helga said softly. “This summer has changed you. You talk like a man now.”

“He is a man, Helga,” Floki said, pride in his voice.

Ivar let himself smile again, though as always his dark thoughts pressed quickly back in. “Death changes a man,” he said with an odd tone, like he was quoting something, or trying to impress his mentor. “Treachery changes you,” he continued, glaring up at the head of the table for a moment. Then his eyes fell on me. “Love changes you.”

I felt a rushing in my ears, and it felt like the whole room was fading away; everything narrowed down to Ivar’s face, drunk and intent and perfect. He had implied it in so many ways, but this was the closest he had ever come to saying plainly that he loved me. He leaned forward like he might kiss me in front of all of these people.

My father’s voice was like a bucket of icy water thrown over the back of my head. “Ivar,” King Harald called from the other end of the table. “What is it you are doing with my daughter there?”

Ivar tightened his fingers around my own, looked straight at my father with his smirking eyes and raised our clasped hands high.

“Yes, I see that you are holding her hand. What I asked you is what you think you are doing with her.” More and more people were falling silent, witnessing the growing spectacle Father was making of us. I turned my head, tried not to look guilty or sheepish as I met his gaze. He looked mostly amused at the moment, but I knew from experience that could change. Sometimes he liked to let people dig themselves an even deeper hole.

Ivar leaned forward, elbows on the table’s edge, hand still wrapped around mine. “Your daughter and I are in love. I want her for my wife.”

I could tell by the way the skin around Father’s eyes smoothed that he was surprised, and trying to hide it. Maybe he had thought to embarrass Ivar, but not knowing my part in this put him at risk of looking the fool here too.

The first noise to break the silence was Bjorn’s guffaw, ringing down from the head of the table. “You can’t be serious, little brother.”

Harald turned to him and raised his hand. “Now now, there is no need to laugh at young love,” he said magnanimously, taking control of the conversation like he always did. “It is good for a man to have goals.” He flashed a smile at us, and I was likely the only person that could tell it was false. “I was just about to announce that I am ready for my daughter to entertain suitors. Though I feel no need to let her go with any haste.” He continued to address the room but laid challenging eyes directly on my lover. “Let the young man dream.” 

Ivar’s hand tightened unpleasantly in mine, realizing his bid was being rejected.

“A man must make a name for himself,” my father continued. He loved the sound of his own voice, and strong drink really got him going. “I myself am not even remarried yet, after I lost Sigrunn’s mother so young, because I knew I needed to prove myself worthy of the Princess I have set my heart upon.” Harald bared his teeth at Ivar in what could only be loosely defined as a smile now. “Soon we will be setting out to make war. We will face many battles. Who knows what fame will come to the sons of Ragnar?” His eyes whipped down the faces of the brothers, lined up on our side of the table. “Any of you might achieve greatness worthy of my daughter’s hand.”

I suppressed a gasp as Ivar squeezed my fingers so hard I thought one might pop from its socket.

My father’s gaze settled on us again. “Perhaps even,” he paused, letting his eyebrows flutter somewhat skeptically, “Ivar the Boneless.”

Sigurd snickered and I knew Ivar had to feel that like a knife across his ribs.

“Feel free to court her, Ivar. Any of you,” Harald’s smiling eyes floated over the faces of Ragnar’s sons, “may vie for her. But she is my only daughter and she will not be easily won.”

Everyone was looking at us. Anger was wafting off Ivar so thickly I thought I could smell it. The joint behind my first finger was screaming but I didn’t want to make a scene. I laid my other hand over Ivar’s like I was comforting him, then covertly tried to pry him off me.

Ivar looked down with a frown, released his grip but kept my hand caged in his. His thumb stroked the injured finger idly as he looked back up at my father, the silence filling up with murmurs as everyone assumed the conversation was over. “I do not think you understood me, Harald,” Ivar called suddenly, back straight and steel in his voice. The voices dropped away. “I do not need to win your daughter. She is already in love with me. And I want her by my side.”

Father’s face lost any trace of geniality. “That is not how this is going to work, boy.” His glare was all for me, now. I was going to have to answer, very soon, for letting things come to this point.

Ubbe stood up with a hasty clatter. “Forgive my brother, King Harald, please. He is drunk.” He stepped between us, his hand clamping down on Ivar’s shoulder. “I think it is time to leave now, Ivar.”

Ivar tried to shrug him off, still glaring at my father. “I am not finished with my conversation with King Finehair.”

“Yes, you are,” Ubbe urged. His wide eyes implored me for support.

“Ivar,” I whispered, tugging at his hand. I was incredibly, painfully aware of everyone staring at us, ready to read into whatever I did next. “You’ve said enough. You are not going to win this tonight.”

I tried not to flinch as Ivar shifted his gaze to my face. I had seen the raging fires of Muspelheim behind those eyes before, but that anger had never been burning for _me_ before. I witnessed plainly the moment that he decided to blame me for the disaster the evening had turned into. “At least I said _something,_ ” he hissed. He finally released my hand, pushing it back at me and turned to drop out of his chair.

My chest tightened like a giant had wrapped his fingers around my entire torso as I watched Ivar stalk away, Ubbe keeping pace behind him and throwing apologetic looks at my father. Margrethe, so silent I had forgotten she was even there, scurried after her betrothed.

I didn’t want to turn around and face Harald Finehair. I had made him look weak, not having all of the information. I had made it look like my first allegiance was not to him. And I was certain I had wounded him as a father, that I had not confided in him something so dear to a young woman’s heart as love.

My gaze fell on Helga, still sitting across the table from me, as Ivar disappeared through the door and I turned back to the room. Her eyes were wide and sympathetic, and I drew a little strength from her unexpected warmth. When I looked to Father his face was closed and brooding. With two quick movements of his fingers he summoned me back to the seat at his side.

I swayed on my feet as I stood. My finger still ached where Ivar’s grip had almost dislocated it. I didn’t want to face the looks of any of these people anymore, could not imagine continuing to make polite talk with them now. But if I left, Ivar and I would be all that anyone would want to gossip about. I straightened my skirts and swept around the foot of the table to my father’s side.

Hvitserk shot me a worried look as I sat back down across from him. He had tried to warn Ivar a proposal would not go well. Father put his hand on my back but said nothing to me. He might have appeared calm, cheerful even, to another observer, but I could see him frantically working to assimilate what he had learned tonight into his ongoing plans for Kattegat. Our next private conversation was not likely to be easy or pleasant.

Lagertha leaned down the table toward us. “I tried to head this off, King Harald, while you were away,” she had the gall to say. She spared me just one icy glance. “I took my responsibility as caretaker for your daughter very seriously. We caught her sneaking around with Ivar once, and after that we made sure it did not happen again.” My cheeks burned as she settled smugly back into her seat; I couldn’t believe I had to listen to this, couldn’t believe she would say these things right in front of me and so many others. “From what I heard,” she continued, “Aslaug was positively encouraging it. You might have returned to find her with a babe in her belly, perhaps even already wed.”

“Take care how you speak of the dead,” I snarled at her. “The Queen was nothing but a gracious and appropriate host.”

“But her son was not very appropriate, was he.”

“Ivar—“ I cut myself off. What was there to say, really? Yes, absolutely he had taken advantage of me, isolated here amongst only his people. The fact that I liked it was not something I was going to bring up as a defense in this company.

My father saved me from further embarrassment. “Sigrunn, your cheeks are so red. It seems perhaps you have had too much to drink too. Maybe you would like to go back to our camp and lie down.”

I could barely meet my father’s eyes but somehow I managed, pressing gratitude and humility into my expression as I gathered my skirts and nodded to him.

Across the table, Hvitserk rose as well. “I will walk her back,” he offered. My brows jumped in surprise.

Father’s eyes twinkled. “That is very kind of you, Hvitserk.”

I didn’t think it meant what Father was reading into it, but I let myself sway against Hvitserk’s arm as we walked out of the hall together. It served Father’s agenda better if the focus of gossip weren’t solely on Ivar’s impulsive proposal.

As soon as the door swung shut I found out why Hvitserk had volunteered. “You have to talk to him,” he said urgently, pulling me along in the direction of their cabin rather than my father’s camp.

I balked. “I don’t think—“

“He is going to be a beast all night if you don’t calm him down. And I actually want to be able to get some sleep tonight.”

I had hoped some time apart would cool Ivar’s head before we had to talk about the scene he made, and my part in it. But Hvitserk did not look very sympathetic to my fear, and his grip on my arm was like iron as we walked down the dark village lane. “I don’t know what to say to him,” I tried.

“You’ll think of something.” Hvitserk twisted his mouth. “Even if you just let him yell at you for a while. Sometimes that was all that Mother could do.”

 

*****

 

Ivar was glaring at the fire, arms clutched around himself and face a sullen mask. Ubbe sat across from him, elbows on his knees, Margrethe all but hiding in the corner making herself as small as possible. “I brought Sigrunn,” Hvitserk announced as he entered, pushing me into the cabin with a hand at the back of my neck when I hesitated. “You two need to talk this out.”

Ivar’s face was baleful, his jaw set at a hard angle as he looked up at me. The reflection of the fire in his eyes was entirely overkill. “How could you humiliate me like that?” he barked, bringing his hands to grip the arms of his chair.

_What did I do?_ I thought as Hvitserk pushed me forward; I reluctantly took a seat as Ubbe got up and beckoned Margrethe toward the door.

“Don’t be too hard on her, Ivar,” Ubbe cautioned, “she is in a very difficult position. One that you bear the blame for putting her in.” I was grateful for the defense, but he and the others were very clearly on their way out the door, and soon would not be around to protect me. “We will leave you some privacy to work this out.”

I jumped at the sound of the door slamming shut. Ivar’s face was hard and seething. “Well?” he asked.

I struggled to remember exactly what he had accused me of.

“You did not argue with your father, you did not speak at all.” He all but spat each word. “You did not even seem surprised at his response. You knew that your father wanted you to allow other men to court you, and you did not warn me, didn’t you.” He was holding himself up on the arms of his chair, like he might lunge at me at any moment. “You let me make a fool of myself.”

“Why did you not tell me you were going to do that?” I pushed back.

“I _did,_ ” Ivar said through clenched teeth. “I told you before I left for England, that I would be asking for your hand. You made it quite clear that was one of the things that you needed from me.”

I supposed he could have seen it that way, that he thought I was saying I would sleep with him if he promised to marry me. Still, I had assumed his words were as cheap as any boy’s. “I… didn’t think you meant it. I thought you were simply boasting to your brothers.”

“Why would I not mean it?” he asked, voice growing softer.

“Because… you are Ivar,” I started, struggling to find the words to explain how he frightened me, how I had always assumed he was just using me. But his face clouded over again and he spoke before I could continue.

“And what, Ivar is a liar?” His eyes gleamed with what looked like contempt and I felt myself crumble under that gaze. So much for being the ice that could withstand his fire. “You were the one who kept saying to me that everything would be fine once your father came back,” he flung at me. “Why do you keep lying to me? What else have you been lying about?”

 “I am not lying, Ivar,” I pleaded, raising my hands to fend him off though so far he had remained in his chair. “Please, calm down. Yes, I kept something from you, and that was wrong of me, stupid. We were just…” I trailed off, voice growing smaller, “having such a peaceful afternoon, I thought I could put off telling you.” It sounded weak even to me.

I paused and Ivar just glared at me, offering no reassurance. _Faint-hearted._ He grunted for me to continue. I had a feeling like I was digging my own grave.

“I will tell you now,” I said quietly, looking at my hands in my lap. “Father has decided to use me to gather influence and strength in Norway. He plans to spread word that he wants to marry me off, and see what kind of alliances he can court with an engagement.” I gave Ivar a plaintive look. “You have to believe that I don’t want to. But Father is going to be introducing me to all of the kings and princes gathering with the Army. He is requiring me to entertain any suitors that wish to court me while he schemes.”

I didn’t think Ivar’s scowl could deepen any further, and yet somehow it did. His eyes were growing distant and my heart felt ready to fall out of my chest. I could see him giving up on me.

“I don’t think that Father humiliated you tonight,” I tried. “This was the best possible outcome we could have hoped for. He gave your courtship his blessing, Ivar.” I stood, pulled my chair close enough that I could take his face in my hands, though it felt about as risky as reaching out to a wild dog. “Now we can stop sneaking around, we can actually be seen together.”

“He rejected me!” Ivar snarled, but he did not pull away from my touch.

“He told us to wait.” I still could not bring myself to tell Ivar that father was not intending to take his candidacy seriously. I would fix that, in my own way, over time. “Please Ivar, don’t be angry with me.” This could have been a chance to get out of this relationship, I realized later. But I did not want that chance anymore. My fingers stroked his cheeks, trying to draw him to look at me. “Tell me this doesn’t change us, doesn’t change how you feel about me.”

Ivar’s eyes finally turned to mine, hollow and furious and behind that, so apprehensive. I watched him lock that pain away before I could touch it. “I still want you for mine,” he said, but his voice held none of his usual passion. “The gods made you for me, I know it. But now I see that no one else understands it, that you are mine and mine alone. Not even you.”

My stomach dropped; he could not hide the heartache in those words, and I could not in good faith disagree with them. I was not sure yet if Ivar was my destiny. Or if I wanted him to be.

Ivar straightened, brought his hands to rest on top of mine. “I want to believe that you are trying, Sigrunn.” His eyes started taking on that predatory cast, the one that started this whole affair. The one that always covered over his fears. “I need you to show me that you are sorry, for being so foolish.” His fingers crushed around my wrists, pulling them down, trapping them against his chest as he leaned into me. “That you are trying to love me. I will forgive you for humiliating me tonight if you show me. Show me with your mouth that you are sorry. Show me with your _kunta_ that you know you’re mine.”

All I felt was cold. I tried to shrug him off. “This is not the time for one of your games, Ivar. This is serious, we need to—“

Ivar’s eyes blazed before I could finish. “Do you think my love is a _game?_ ”

Talk. I was going to say talk. But Ivar’s hands were balling into the shoulders of my dress and he shook me so hard my teeth clattered. He pulled my face close to his. Words were failing both of us, and there was nothing now but his overwhelming need to possess me. I saw violence in those blazing eyes. I saw rape. I saw the end of me.

I don’t know what Ivar saw in my eyes, but he pushed me away just as suddenly. “I cannot stand the sight of you,” he announced. His hands were shaking. He was looking everywhere but my face. “Get out.” His body hiccupped, like he had just stopped himself from lunging at me again. “Now.”

I didn’t want to leave him like this. But I feared what would happen if I stayed even more. I stood, fighting through the trembling in my own limbs as I backed away from him. I felt like I was leaving a piece of my heart on the floor in front of him; I could almost see it, beating grotesquely and spilling red over the floorboards. The part of me that would do anything, bear anything, for this man. Is that what love feels like?

I left it at his feet and walked out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> couple more days and there will be another update, don't worry I won't leave you all this way for long!


	9. morning star

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick reminder that this work has strong dub-con elements and this chapter definitely dips in that direction in places. Prepare yourself as needed.

I was still choking back tears as I busied myself about my father’s tent, unpacking my trunk and settling in all my belongings. Ivar had been so frightening, but beneath that I could see how deeply he was wounded. His illusions about me, about us, were all crumbling.

From my very arrival at Kattegat he had pushed his way into my life without asking; told me that I loved him, told that me I was his. First I fought it, then I embraced it, even started to believe it. I thought he was the one playing a game. I thought I was the victim here.

It was still hard to conceive that Ivar actually loved me.

As I settled my box of jewelry on a small table, laid my hairbrush alongside it, I wondered how long he would stay angry. Ivar was so good at holding onto his grievances; I wondered if he were even capable of accepting our new situation. Perhaps the attraction would sour now, under the disappointment and the insult. Maybe he would no longer be interested in me now that he was not in control. My stomach twisted at the thought. I hated to imagine him in pain, and hated the thought of him turning away from me even worse. I did not think I could ever handle meeting Ivar’s eyes and finding them cold.

But everything was changing now, I too had to accept that. I sat down on the little bed that had been prepared for me in my father’s tent and tried to center my swirling emotions. I thought of Mother Frigg, felt a stab of shame for not asking for her help earlier. _Please, Mother,_ I prayed, _what is the right path? What is your will for me?_ Certainly my life was headed to her domain now; I would no longer be treated as a child but as a woman, one in search of a husband, ready to establish my own hearth and home.

I tried to feel excited about that. Now was my time, to fulfill all my girlish dreams. Father was going to find me a husband, one who would take care of me, cherish me; one with a famed name who would bring me glory and riches. I was King Harald’s daughter and it could be no other way. I knew in my heart that I deserved nothing less than all of those things, and feared that Ivar might not be able to give me any of them. He could be so selfish, so cruel. He was so disadvantaged in his life: his inheritance already stolen, half his body twisted and useless. And yet when I pictured my husband wearing any face other than his I only felt hollow.

Perhaps I should have been praying to Freya. She cared more about love and glory than stability and a peaceful home. But I did not know which path was the more foolish: to follow my feelings or to follow my duty.

I sighed and went back to my trunk, started to unpack my dresses. I tried to find some comfort in making this hearth my home again; this was not the first time I had shared my father’s war tent. Our life was one of constant campaigns. My mother had died before I could know her and in my earliest memories Harald Finehair was already busying himself with conquering and expanding the greatness of his name. He left me safe with his sisters when he was going to battle, but there were many reasons for his household to travel with him at other times: securing alliances, consolidating power, shifting which town was his seat as his kingdom expanded. Father believed relationships won you as much power as steel did, and that you must know your subjects and enemies as well as you can so that you always know how to act. It was why he raided so often with Ragnar’s clan, and why he had offered me as hostage to them too. Readying for the right time to strike.

Sometimes it felt that my whole life had been spent traveling; I had met royal families in Sweden, Denmark, and all across Norway, dined with princes and soldiers and peasants along our way. And every visit carried the weight of my father’s purpose. When I was young he liked to use my presence to imply his trustworthiness; look at this good father, wouldn’t he also make a good king. He did not bring me along when he had decided that it was time to get his way instead with blood.

And now I would serve his ends in a new form. Though maybe not so new. As I hung my dresses in my corner of the tent I recalled the sparkle in Father’s eyes as he had presented me with each of these lovely things. He knew the power a beautiful woman had over a man, and I thought he had been grooming me for this role for some time now. Tomorrow he would begin to dangle me like a prize before all the powerful men gathered here.

It was going to be so painful for Ivar.

I sighed into the empty room, heart lurching again. I had made such a mess of things with him. He was right to be angry; I had been hiding so much from him. Every time we were together he swept me up like a flood and I never seemed able to find my footing for long enough to stand and show him my true self. He knocked me over with his need for me to be just precisely what he wanted, every time.

And this time I had let him wash me ashore. He had always directed his anger at pulling me in closer but now he had flung me out, rejected me. It stung but it somehow also felt like progress. If I displeased him it meant that he was seeing the truth of me, not just the fantasy we had been building up together in our months of lust and separation.

I thought again of that throbbing piece of my heart on the floor, noticed that it was already hurting less. There was a certain freedom in the pain of his rejection. Not a freedom to walk away from him, I didn’t want that, but rather enough distance to stand taller and show him who I really was. Enough distance to realize that the pull I felt toward him was not just illusion, was not just his presence and sheer force of will. My heart was aching to go back to him already, despite his fearsome temper. But if I wanted to move forward with Ivar I realized I had to be brave enough to remain honest, to tolerate his rages long enough to teach him the difference between love and games. And that would be difficult for me.

I started to unplait my hair, feeling like I was waking up after a long sleep now that I was here amongst my father’s familiar things. I had been a guest at Kattegat, a ghost. My only job was to observe, and exist, and wait for my father to return. Now I was coming back to myself. There was more to me than Ivar had ever seen, and I had my own dreams. To rule a kingdom, to please the gods and continue to learn their ways. To raise children who would be kings and queens in their own rights, and sung about for centuries to come. I had started to see Ivar’s familiar frame sitting on that throne beside me, but his place there was not yet inevitable, and it irked me every time he assumed it so.

My brooding was interrupted when Father burst into the tent. His face was merry with drink and some of the tension in my chest eased when he stepped forward to embrace me. “I was hoping to find you still awake, daughter.”

My answering smile was more reserved. I had hurt Father too, and I knew he would hold me accountable for that in a moment, no matter the warmth of his greeting. He dropped onto the edge of his bed and began loosening his boots, waving his hand to indicate I should sit on the chair by the little hearth we had for warmth.

“You were holding a lot back when we spoke this morning,” he began, his voice already sterner than his face. “You did not tell me you had already… established an affair. With Ivar, of all people.” Then he waited for me to say something.

It was strange to try and talk about this now, with so much lying broken between Ivar and I. “I didn’t mean for it to go so far,” I said softly, twisting the fabric of my skirt in my hands. “I know that you need me to appear available, open to a political marriage.” I tried to sound sensible, dutiful, but my words rang out hollow.

Father had looked up from his boots, was staring at me closely. His face was softened by drink but he was focused. “Are you truly in love with him?”

I almost cried at the kindness of the question. I couldn’t expect Father to care about my feelings in this but there he was, open and curious. All my confusion and pain and hope, so long held in secrecy and isolation, rushed up into my throat. “I do not know,” I confessed to him. “Sometimes I think so, but I did not expect love to be so… painful.”

Father chuckled at that, his eyes still warm. “Love is a terrible mistress. She brings pain as often as joy. Sometimes I wish I could spare you from it.” He sat back, raised an eyebrow. “Actually, I can. We can find you a good husband here, an admirable and decent man that won’t put you through any of the trials and uncertainties of passion.”

I looked back at my hands. “An arranged marriage. Sometimes, I think that would be wisest,” I said, my voice small.

Father leaned forward, caught my eye again. “There are many men here who would marry you, Sigrunn,” he said seriously. “To be in love with someone like Ivar would be a hard path. He is the youngest son. He is not going to achieve fame on the battlefield. He is called Prince now, but I do not see how he will gain any glory or wealth of his own. He is sustained only in his father’s shadow, held up by his brothers, and I think that will always be the way of it.” Father’s eyes were still kind. He was trying to let me down as easily as possible, and I appreciated the effort.

Still, I did not agree with him. “Do not be so sure. Ivar above all of them has inherited his father’s mind.” As I listened to Father’s words I felt ignited rather than soothed. They only made me realize how much I did see in Ivar. How much I wanted to stand beside him, the underestimated one. “Was that not what made Ragnar so great? His intelligence and cunning, those are what made his name. Is that not why you joined him to raid in Paris?”

“And I saw little of that famous intelligence, there. He failed to sack Paris on that trip.” A faint smile touched the corner of Father’s mouth. “But yes, a man’s mind is the greatest weapon of all. Every tale of Odin and the rest of the gods tells us so. It may be that Ivar is as you say, but he has not yet had a chance to prove himself.” Father leaned down, finished shedding his boots. “It is not the right time to bond you to this family, regardless. I won’t be rushed into an engagement, even if you begged me. I am glad to hear that you are being more reasonable about this than he was. If we end up having need of them, we shall see if any of the sons of Ragnar can prove worthy of you after they lead this campaign to England.”

I shook my head. “None of Ivar’s brothers will ever court me. They fear his wrath too much.”

Father looked up at that. “Do they?” This seemed to impress him more than anything else I had said. He did value ferocity and resolve. And he would soon learn the bottomless strength of Ivar’s character. “So he is truly in love with you?”

I almost shuddered. “I think so. He harries me; when we have been allowed to be together he always keeps me by his side.”

Harald studied me a moment, parsing those words. “Obedience is a virtue in a woman, but sometimes I worry that you are too meek, Sigrunn. No daughter of mine should let herself be ‘harried.’”

I let out an irritated sigh. “I meant only to illustrate how attached he is to me.” But Father’s words stung. I had never been proud of how easily I let Ivar do exactly as he pleased with me, how often I compromised myself for him.

 “The boy has courage,” Father mused, “I'll give him that. He didn't blink when he faced me down over the table tonight.”

“He refuses to let anything stop him, when he knows what he wants.” And was that not what made him so attractive and so frightening in equal parts.

Father sighed. “You want to wait for him to make his name, you think he will win the loyalty of warriors and carve out a kingdom to share with you one day? I can indulge that. We do not need to set anything in stone yet. Take your time and see if this boy is who you think he is. Keeping his interest in you is only an advantage for me at this point.”

I was almost surprised at the tingling smile that spread across my face at those words; maybe my feelings for Ivar ran deeper than I was letting myself know.

“But take care not to get pregnant,” Father added, and I looked away, cheeks burning. “Do not tie yourself to this boy. I still want you to meet the other kings and princes.” He stood up, changing the subject swiftly from my embarrassment. “Indulge your father and his schemes before you choose a man and leave my hearth forever. Take your time, and I'll wager you will find someone else who makes you happier.” He raised his hands as my face soured a little. “But I won't rush you. I just want you to help me plant a few seeds in a few minds during this campaign. We have much to gain through alliances in Sweden, or Denmark. And we have the perfect opportunity here. Can you do this for me, Daughter?”

 

*****

 

The next day Father kept me with him, wasting no time in visiting the other camps and making introductions. The first was a king who held some modest lands in Sweden, an old acquaintance of Father’s who just happened to have a son near my age. “He is not married, you say? Why neither is my daughter.” From him we got an introduction to a young man already king in his own right and not yet wed; their lands shared a border. I smiled and bent my head and tried to appear beguiling, but I was not interested in either of them. I was haunted by the pain in Ivar’s face, plagued by my need to fix it.

Dinner in the great hall that night was worse. Lagertha was feasting everyone of rank and Father saw this as the perfect opportunity to repeat his announcement. Ivar and his brothers were there, seated at a table as far from Lagertha as they could get. Smiling and nodding through dinner was the best I could accomplish, the coldness in Ivar’s eyes stabbing me again every time I looked over at him.

It hurt about as much as I had expected. I wanted to run to him and stroke his face, grovel and plead until he looked at me with some semblance of warmth again. And _that_ impulse made me angry, at both him and myself, led me to draw myself up haughtily and look away. We hadn’t been able to talk since he threw me out of his cabin. At least this time he knew what was coming when my father stood up, raised his glass, and announced my eligibility for suitors to all the important men gathered there. At least he didn’t make a scene.

But how he had watched me. I shivered again just thinking of it. _I can’t stand to look at you,_ Ivar had said last night, but he proved the lie to those words. Tonight he never seemed to be looking anywhere else. And yet he did not acknowledge me, would not return my timid, questioning smiles. He watched me like an object, just the quarry that he was tracking. He stayed in his seat at the far end of the hall all through dinner, and I huddled in the shelter of my father’s side.

I resolved to approach Ivar on my way out, right after the conclusion of the meal I could barely eat. I knew Father wanted me to stay and meet with some interested parties but that night I just couldn’t. I bid him goodnight and turned to find Ivar’s chair was already empty.

I decided to leave anyway, too frustrated and heartsick to play anyone’s games. I trudged through the streets alone toward my tent, head hanging as heavy as my heart. Why couldn’t Ivar have more grace about this, I thought. It wasn’t easy on me either. I turned down a narrow lane between empty buildings and almost tripped on him.

“Ivar, what are you doing here?” I said irritably, catching my balance on the wooden wall beside me.

“I thought you would come this way,” he responded, glaring up at me. He looked a mess; it had rained this afternoon and the ground was still muddy. His clothes and his hands were as caked as my boots, a streak of earth on his cheek where he must have wiped his hair from his face. At least his eyes weren’t cold anymore. The embers of yesterday’s anger were still glowing out from under his thick eyelashes and heavy brow, with an intensity that signaled I still meant something to him.

“So now you want to talk to me,” I said, crossing my arms. I wanted to talk to him too, I wasn’t sure why I was bristling like this. But something about where he had caught me, in a deserted part of the town with the light swiftly fading from the sky, made me feel threatened.

Ivar scowled. “I have nothing to say. _You_ still have things you need to say to _me._ ” He pulled himself back to rest against the wall forming the little alley and waited.

I sighed. It was still all about Ivar and his feelings. But I had to admit that these changes were hurting him worse than me. And I had to try a different approach, take care not to reignite the dangerous rage that was still smoldering behind his eyes. I pressed my back against the opposite wall and sank down to his level in a comfortable crouch, careful to keep my skirts up out of the dirt. “I am sorry to torture you like this, Ivar.”

His eyes could never hide very much. Just that simple acknowledgement of his pain softened them around the edges, emboldened me to continue.

“I should not have held so much back. It’s just that I can barely breathe when I am with you.” My eyes begged for more reassurance but he stared back at me, unmoved. “If I were braver, I could have made this a little easier for you. We could have prepared our case together.”

Ivar’s face only clouded again. “Yes, but you made your choices. You showed where your loyalty lies.”

I huffed in frustration. “Yes, Ivar, I am a Princess. My loyalty is to my own people. To my father. I have been trying to tell you this all along, that I am not a woman who will be allowed to marry for love.”

“You will marry the strongest, the most powerful man who will have you. And that will not be the cripple.” He dropped his head.

“I will marry with my father’s blessing, yes, but I am _not_ going to just sit back and let him choose for me.” I couldn’t let Ivar give up. I leaned in toward him, making sure I had his eyes as I spoke my next words. “ _You_ are the strongest man I know. You have to be patient, Ivar, and we will win him over. _That_ is the choice I have made.” I might have only made it right in this moment, but the truth of it rang deep in my bones.

Ivar did not let my meaning sink in; my impassioned words only vaguely twisted his lips. “Patient while you smile at other men. Patient as I watch them give you gifts, touch you, tempt you to make a different choice.” He jutted his jaw and glared at me.

“Yes,” I said, crossing my arms. I wanted to reassure him but this self-pity annoyed me, the way he chose to continue to focus on his pain instead of the declaration of love I had just laid at his feet. It was like he didn’t even notice it. “Yes, I need you to be strong and patient through all of that. I know you have that in you. It is what I--” I paused, suddenly self-conscious, “what I admire about you most. It is what will make you great.”

He looked down, pouted a moment more. Then I saw him pull himself together, a new idea seeming to occur to him. His eyes turned slowly back up to me and something nasty was gleaming in them. “Patient. Like a hunter, waiting out his prey.” He started leaning toward me. “Sigrunn the doe, and all the wolves are circling now.”

I felt my heart start to race at that look, my body instinctively tensing to pull away.

How I had missed this feeling.

“They will try and snare you with pretty words, gleaming baubles.” He gave a mocking little shrug. “Let them.”

Finally, here was the Ivar that captivated me. Here was his strength, his bottomless resolve. He looked like he was coming to embrace me, but he was so muddy I didn’t want to allow it. The fine yellow dress I had donned for the feast was still spotless. “Ivar,” I tried to warn, but he spoke over me, dragging his body closer.

“They do not know how to take you down, my little prey. Only I know that. I know the dark and secret things that make you mine.”

He looked up at me from under his brows, like a monster in the dark coming to drag me away in the dim light of this dirty alley. Sudden lust burst in my core. I was ready to rush back to his cabin with him and let him keep me there until Father came down with all his warriors and forced me out. “Yes, Ivar,” I breathed, coming up to my feet and trying to stay out of reach of his dirty hands, “but not here. Let’s go back to your bed.”

I turned to go and Ivar grabbed my ankle. Outrage lanced through me and I attempted to twist out of his grip. Instead, he got me off-balance and I fell hard into the mud on my arse. The pain crowded out everything for a moment, and my next impulse was to rage at him for soiling my dress.

I only got so far as locking eyes with him before he yanked again on my ankle, dragging me further into the alley. Before I could try to fight him properly his body was on top of mine, face a mask of emotion as he pressed it close to mine. This was turning into something that was not entirely playful, for either of us. We had reached a sort of resolution with our words, but unspoken feelings were still raging.

My skirts were crumpled up past my knees and he had dirtied my hair now too, fueling my anger. I tried to strike him in the face, snarling, but he caught my fists surprisingly easily and forced them into the mud above my head.

“Ivar, what are you doing?”

“Taking what’s mine,” he growled, and tried to kiss me.

I jerked my head to the side and made an angry noise, too overcome to find any words. This rage felt so good. I wanted to struggle against him.

Ivar settled for my cheek, nipping and sucking over my jaw and down my neck. He had gotten the dead weight of his legs between mine and the futile struggling of my hips only helped me feel his readiness to make good on his threat.

“Ivar, no,” I pleaded, finally realizing what he intended to do. “Not here.” But the strength was sapping out of my voice. I had already refused once to use sex to fix things between us and I knew I should be maintaining my resolve. But the way his strong hands pinned me down, the insistent harshness of his breath in my ear… my treacherous body was already telling me to let go, looking forward to allowing this to happen.

Ivar tried to kiss me again. “You don’t mean that. You crave me as much as I crave you.”

His tongue pressed to enter my mouth and I tried to bite it.

He pulled away. “Fight me then,” he said through gritted teeth. “I want you to.” I struggled but still he managed to get both my wrists locked in just one of his rough hands, so the other was free to roam my body, start loosening clothing. “Burn yourself out trying to resist, until you’re forced to admit you want this. You like it like this. You don’t want to have to decide; you just want me to take you.”

I wondered if anyone would come and stop him, but this part of the town seemed deserted and night was flowing in fast. My breasts spilled out into the cool air and I moaned. Ivar grinned.

“That’s my girl,” he intoned, bent his head to draw my nipple into his hot mouth. “You know that you are mine.” He tugged it between his teeth.

I should have stopped him. I no longer wanted to. I didn’t want to be anywhere else in the world right now than pressed under his body in this muddy alley, about to be fucked in the dirt like a slave. Like an animal. Ivar was right; I didn’t want to have to decide anything. I didn’t want to be responsible for any of my choices. Just let him consume me.

I pressed my hips against his as Ivar’s dirty hand pillaged my body. He left black streaks over the pale skin of my breasts and I heard my skirt tear a little as he rushed to pull it out of our way. The dress was probably ruined. The thought sparked a fresh wave of irritation and when Ivar released my hands to focus on removing all these fabric barriers, I reared up and sunk my teeth into the side of his neck.

It felt so good to be angry with Ivar, to finally act on the months of frustration and confusion and pain he had caused me. And it felt even better to be slammed back to the ground, to be pinned by his superior weight and know that I couldn’t get rid of him no matter how hard I raged.

Ivar’s eyes were as wild as mine as he loomed over my face. “Every prey animal fights before its death.” I felt his hard length press against the skin of my inner thigh; he had succeeded in baring us to each other even as I struggled. “And yet, its end is inevitable. Are you ready to yield and admit that you belong to me?”

I jutted my chin out and shook my head.

Ivar bared his teeth and snarled in my face. “then I will make you.” He grabbed under my knee and pulled my thigh out, opening my body to him.

I shivered; his implication was plain.  I was enjoying fighting him, but when Ivar spread me I did not resist. The truth was, with the weakness in his legs, he needed my cooperation to get himself lined up to take me. If we continued to pretend he was forcing me we would struggling through clumsy stabbing and a lot of unpleasant pain. It was time to finally give in; perhaps even change the game we were playing. I let my urge to fight recede enough to make room for my other rising passion, a need to feel him inside me so great that I was almost ready to flip him over and take him myself.

I let a lustful grin twist my lips, eyes going dark and carnal to signal my readiness to him. An answering arousal flooded Ivar’s features. “By the gods, Sigrunn,” he moaned, overcome by my eager willingness, and pressed his fingers directly into me.

My back arched at the sudden attack of sensation, my legs clenching and bracing as my body couldn’t decide whether to push him out or welcome him in deeper. I wailed as he pumped his hand immediately against some secret place inside me, one that felt so intense I couldn’t decide if it was pain or pleasure. I pushed against him and he only gave me a delighted growl.

“Tell me you’re mine, and you can have my cock,” he said through gritted teeth, eyes ferocious and just inches away from my face.

I only moaned and tossed my head.

“Say it,” he ordered, fucking me harder, his knuckles grinding against my asshole in a way that felt dirty and wonderful.

Normally I would have loved to submit to Ivar, let him fuck me senseless and leave it at that. But all the hard emotions we had just been through were demanding something more of me. I was still imagining myself riding him; my body was entirely frustrated to be stuck underneath his.

I was frustrated about a lot of things. That Ivar never listened, never asked me; that he demanded so much that he never even gave himself a chance to see he was already getting what he wanted from me. He didn’t need to fight so hard for it. I _was_ in love with him, gods help me, and if he ever let me speak I might be able to tell him that, in my own way.

Suddenly the answer was easy. “I am yours, Ivar,” I smiled up at him, voice ringing the truth like a clear bell. “Now roll over and let me show you.” No submission in my voice now; I was confident and full of need.

He seemed confused for a moment, so used to being in control, always pushing and cajoling and directing me. But that wasn’t what he really needed right now. It wasn’t what either of us needed.

“You want me to prove my passion to you. Let me prove it. I need to ride you like a Valkyrie rides the storm.”

The ferocious act slipped; Ivar broke into a grin like the youth he was, eager and almost incredulous. He pulled his fingers carefully from my body, scooped me up and rolled us as one until he lay on his broad back and looked up at me with fierce anticipation. He kept me bent close with a firm hand at the back of my head, one last vestige of control he probably didn’t realize he was clinging to.

I pressed a kiss to his lips; the first one we had shared this evening. We only had patience for the one. Ivar was drawing my skirts up in a flurry, and I rose up over him and pulled at the fabric as well so I could get my hand between our bodies. Ivar was so hard his cock stood flush against his belly and I had to lift it get it pointed in the right direction. I was too eager to touch him gently, was rewarded with a groan as I grabbed his shaft and squeezed.

I had finally _chosen_ him, with all my heart, and suddenly everything felt different. I was seized with a sudden impulse, set his swollen head against my entrance but did not move to take him. “Your turn, Ivar,” I said, voice low and ragged. “You’ve never said it plain. Tell me you love me.”

Ivar tossed his head like I was hurting him somehow. Now maybe he would see how it felt to have your most intimate feelings demanded rather than coaxed.

But he went still, then fixed me with the full weight of his azure gaze. “You are my morning star,” Ivar confessed. “The only bright light in the moonless night that is my wretched life.” His lip curled arrogantly, like he knew I had attempted to turn the tables when I was actually playing right into his hand. “I love you, Sigrunn. When you are not with me all I see is darkness.”

I was speechless.

Ivar’s eyebrows jumped. “Was that enough to satisfy you, storm-rider?” he mocked. The poetry in those words had to have been rehearsed, the bastard just waiting for the right time to unleash them on me, but that did not lessen their impact on my heart.

The golden warmth flooding my chest forced my eyes closed. All I could do in answer was to sink down onto his cock, to welcome him into me without any more hesitation. This time Ivar filled me like he never had before, sliding home with a buzzing feeling like nothing had ever been right with the world before this exact moment.

We still couldn’t go slowly. The passion we had raised tonight spurred me to rock my hips with abandon, so that I could feel every inch of him pressing so deeply inside me. Ivar’s hands ran over my waist and hips, encouraging and appreciating and spurring me on. He was looking at me like I was the most beautiful sight he had ever seen; muddy clothes ripped open, hair a matted dirty mess. I straightened my spine and ground my hips against his, gasping at the joyful fullness of his body in mine.

“You want to think of me as a deer,” I said, “but you were right the first time. I am a wild horse. I am more than someone’s prey.”

I half expected Ivar to argue, but he just kept staring up at me, rocking softly in time to my movements, utterly captivated.

“You cannot demand my love, Ivar,” I continued, dropping my chin to look down on him like a queen, “if you want it, you have to _earn it._ ”

I think I saw him nod faintly, his eyes rolling in awed pleasure and perfect lips still speechless. I ground my hips into him even harder, drawing soft cries from both of us as I felt him penetrating deeper. But I had to slow down. I had finally found a way to make him listen.

“I want you to, Ivar. I want you to be the one to win my heart. But it is not truly yours yet. I love you _and_ I hold back, because I am afraid of you. You can so easily hurt me.” I rolled my hips softly as I spoke, and Ivar’s eyes were like deep pools I was dropping my words into. “I need you to show me that you care for me. Listen to me. Try to make me happy. Then I will do the same for you. Then I might let you _tame_ me like I am your wild mare _,_ ” I said with a mischievous smile. Every word made me feel lighter, freer, more open to him.

Ivar’s hands spasmed over my thighs and I groaned at the pleasure and the power both, my whole body starting to feel like it was shimmering. I dropped one hand to his chest as I felt my orgasm build, the time for words rapidly coming to an end. I closed my eyes and angled my hips over him until he was reaching the most perfectly delicious spot. I heard him cry my name almost distantly as I fucked him faster and faster, until the stars filling my body all burst at once and I lost my sense of time and place in the exploding rush of pleasure.

The first thing I became aware of again was the movement of his hands, stroking through my unkempt hair. I was still holding myself up over his chest. When I opened my eyes, Ivar was gazing at me in wonder. His body was motionless underneath mine now, and I let my slowly-rocking hips still. “That was incredible,” he breathed, fingertips touching my face with reverence.

I smiled sheepishly and slumped on top of him, exhausted in my afterglow. Now that it was over I felt my usual doubts rushing to cover me again. What had I just said to him? It wasn’t exactly what he wanted to hear, I knew that. Would he be angry? He didn’t seem angry.  

Ivar's voice came low in my ear. “I knew you would finally stop holding back, and show me how willing you are to be mine.”

I struggled to rise and look him in the eye. It was his usual cocky tone and I feared he had missed my meaning entirely.

“Hush,” he chuckled, clutching me back to his chest. “I was listening, storm-rider. I will… keep listening. I want to love you as well as you deserve to be loved.”

I purred into him, effervescent with the joy of hearing such tender words fall from my lover’s mouth. There was hope that Ivar could make me happy. There had to be. I just had to keep reminding him how. His cock was slipping out of me now, shrinking and content. I stretched my legs and snuggled into his body, feeling a trickle of Ivar’s seed escaping as I moved. We had forgotten, again. I did not know what my father would decide to do if I did come up pregnant, but I thought even that would not be guaranteed to force his hand. I chose not to think too hard about it.

Ivar’s broad chest was so warm against my cheek. Night had fallen fully, concealing us in that deserted little alley. I would care again soon, that we were lying on the ground in the middle of the town, but not yet. My head rose and fell with the power of Ivar’s breaths, and I felt that we were beginning to melt into each other, soothing each other at last as our heartbeats began to sync.

My own heart was still at Ivar’s feet, but I felt safer now, leaving it there. It was shielded by the challenge I had laid down beside it. The terms by which he would win the right to pick it up. “I _am_ going to marry a great man,” I said quietly, imagining us on a pair of thrones again. “You are going to be that great man, Ivar. Prove it for us, in England. Burn it all down, if you have to.”


	10. deleted scenes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> End of Act II

So I've decided to end the document here, as the last scene was pretty much the end of Act II of this story. The tale of Ivar and Sigrunn continues in [Ride The Storm,](http://archiveofourown.org/works/11395326/chapters/25520952) which you can find here: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11395326/chapters/25520952 . If this were a printed novel, all three of these stories would be one book that I would call Hold Me Down, thus the title of the series.

Thank you all for coming this far with me! I am so close to completing my goal of writing a novel-length story and I couldn't have done it without all your support!! I'll leave this file with two "deleted scene" drabbles that I wrote in response to a tumblr game. You can consider these scenes as things that actually happened, they just don't fit the shape of the larger story and kind of float in the time between Part II and Part III (which is also conveniently the several-week-long gap between the events of episodes 4x17 and 4x18).

 

**31 - Do they sing together**

Sigrunn was surprised at the sweet tenor of Ivar’s voice threading through the tones of the warriors’ drinking song as it filled the air of the hall. She was just stepping back into the room when someone had started it up, and she approached Ivar’s back softly, afraid he might stop if he noticed her return. She stood behind his chair, one hand softly on its frame, and just listened. He wasn’t loud, wasn’t trying to catch anyone’s attention, but he knew all the words and his tone was rich and true.

He raised his horn and turned to catch the eyes of the men he was beginning to call friends that filled his table; foreign warriors he was winning to his side with his wit and passion before they’d ever even hit the battlefield together. As Sigrunn knew that he would. The turn of Ivar’s head revealed her presence behind him, and to her delight he only sang louder when he realized she was there. He rolled his head back to look at her fully as she hovered above him and she could see how drunk he was then. His smile so easy, his face so earnest as he belted out the final verse of the song directly to her. Sigrunn joined him in the last line with her own tremulous soprano, and as everyone else closed the song with a lusty drink from their horns Ivar was pulling her into his lap and sating himself on her lips instead.

 

**13 – How does each act when getting drunk (and what perverted things do they do then)**

Sigrunn tried to stop giggling, but each attempt to control herself only seemed to send her into a deeper fit. Everything was funny: the way the mead sloshed out of Ivar’s horn because he was gesturing so wildly whenever he spoke; the scarlet of Hvitserk’s cheeks that only seemed to deepen with every drink he took. Lagertha’s end of the hall was like a grandmother’s knitting circle compared to the merriment stirring up between the Ragnarssons and their new allies in their unofficial turf nearer the doors. She wondered if any of those women wished they could come down to this side; maybe Astrid right now was wanting to eat her judgmental words about Ivar and his supposed poor companionship.

That thought made her giggling start afresh, and Ivar turned bleary eyes lit up in sleepy amusement toward her. “What,” he asked, his sharp smile creasing lines through both cheeks, “is wrong with you, little lamb?”

He had declared in the middle of his second cup tonight that he was no longer satisfied calling her just “pet;” that he had to decide more specifically just what sort of adorable beast she actually was. Sigrunn’s giggling fit only intensified at this particular attempt; “lamb” was also the kind of meat rolling around in his mouth right now and she just couldn’t handle the comparison.

“Stop laughing,” Ivar said through a grin of his own, “people will think that you are simple. And I can’t be seen with a simpleton.”

But the harder she tried to stop, the more her belly convulsed. Tears started leaking from her eyes as the barely-suppressed giggles made her shudder.

Ivar’s arms came around her, pulling her into his chest. “Shhhh, shhhhh,” he giggled, like he was soothing a baby. Still too funny; she wiped the moisture from her cheeks into his chest and continued to fail at pulling herself together.

Ivar looked around the room apologetically; Hvitserk raised his shoulders, silently asking “what are you going to do?” as he grinned at Sigrunn’s helpless state.

This wasn’t the first time she’d been gasping for air against Ivar’s solid chest, and it certainly wouldn’t be the last, but it was possibly the most embarrassing. She knew how foolish she was starting to look; the little girl that just couldn’t hold her liquor. Ivar ran his hand over her face, jokingly smothering her mouth to stop the laughter still bubbling out. But his eyes blazed at the sensation of her lips against his palm, his fingers wrapped around her face.

She knew that look.

Ivar shifted his grip around her body, pulling her snugly into him so it would be harder for her to twist away. Sigrunn could guess what was coming next and she only hoped that everyone else would just take it as a bad drunken joke.

“Shut – your - mouth,” Ivar ordered, still giggling himself, then pressed his hand across her face more firmly.

He had done a lot of strange things to her, but he had never been so _playful_ about it before. Her cheeks reddened but her heart swelled as Ivar casually blocked her nose too, daring to play that game of denying her breath right here in front of everyone. Sigrunn gazed into his mirthful eyes as her chest continued to jump, still trying to laugh even without any air. Hopefully no one would realize he was not just _pretending_ to smother her with his palm.

He let her go before her body’s instincts forced her to struggle. Her first gasping breath finally interrupted the giggle fit, but now she was left with some equally overwhelming urges rising from somewhere deeper than her lungs. Ivar was irresistible tonight, the flowing mead leaving him so relaxed that she might even call him cheerful. It was a rare gift she didn’t intend to waste. She wasn’t quite drunk enough to climb into his lap right here, though there were other couples already reaching that point in the hall tonight. Besides, such boldness might violate the limits of what her father considered appropriate public behavior between Ivar and herself. But she could twist onto the side of one hip, remaining in her own seat, rest against Ivar’s chest for a little longer and let him steal a few kisses.

Ivar seemed to be having the same thoughts, meeting her lips with a controlled sort of savoring certainly meant to appear like he didn’t get to do this very often. But his hand was trailing under the table, taking advantage of her upturned hip and grasping the swell of her ass in vigorous handfuls. She moaned into his mouth as his fingers pressed toward the sensitive flesh between her cheeks, then couldn’t help but squirm as he rubbed against her arsehole.

It felt really good, actually. Clearly he was too drunk to find his way down there tonight, but Sigrunn found she didn’t really mind. She was sure he’d realize his mistake in a moment, but she relaxed and let the odd pleasure stoke her own fire. Ivar pressed against that sensitive point in rocking waves of gentle pressure and showed no signs of moving on.

“Ivar,” Sigrunn whispered, “that’s not… you’re on my arsehole,” she explained, giggling a little again.

Ivar fixed her with a mischievous gaze. “I know,” he whispered back.

Sigrunn’s brow creased.

“You seem to like it,” he observed, pressing in more boldly now that he was caught.

“But that’s… _dirty,_ ” she whispered.

Ivar brought his lips right to the shell of her ear. “It amuses me to do things to you that Nature did not intend.”

 


End file.
